On Becoming Europe

After concluding another 16 days in Europe. I am again reminded how different their form of socialism is, and yet how closely it resembles the model that Obama seeks for America. The vast majority of citizens lives in apartments, even in smaller towns and villages. Cars are tiny. Prices are higher than in the states; income is lower (The government taxes you to pay for things like “free” college, so you won’t have much to spend on antisocial things like your Wal-Mart plastic Christmas Tree or your second K-Mart plasma TV.)

Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant. The stifled desire to acquire something—large house, car, deposit account—is of course not quite destroyed by socialism, but rather is channeled into a sort of cynicism and anger, often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning. The number of Gucci like stores selling overpriced label junk like 200 Euro eye-glass frames and 1000 Euro leather bags to socialists is quite amazing.

A Party for Everything

Multiple political parties flourish, all with passionate single agenda constituents. Graffiti is not gang related, but mostly political and nonsensical. Media is divided by politics, a leftwing paper, a rightwing magazine. Unions control almost all government services. And yet class is firmly entrenched and aristocratic snobbery more pronounced. (We already see that strange symbiosis between socialism for everyone else, capitalism for a few, whether in Michelle’s clothes, the Obama’s mansion, the Kerry fortune, the Edwards compound, the Gore appurtenances, the Clinton speaking cash cow, and too many others to list).

Among upper-class Greeks, one is constantly reminded that their grandfather, their cousin, or mother-in-law was this minister once, or that writer years ago, or today a famous diplomat—anything to focus one’s attention beyond the possession of the normal flat in the normal apartment building and the normal tiny Fiat and the normal public education.

Ministries to be Milked

When I talk to well-off Italians and Greeks who have substantial homes by the sea not available to most others, one of three realities leak out: one, they have family money made decades ago by their ancestors that includes ancestral estates permissible before the period of supposed mandated equality of result. In other words, theirs got theirs and then helped make laws so no one else could.

Or, two, people simply cheat on taxes all the time. If you buy something, the offer comes to pay in cash. A Greek explained to me his government job is his official tax-paying day job; the expertise necessary for it is what he farms out at night and on weekends for cash that goes for a second home, a larger car, a vacation abroad.

Egalitarian Vampires

Or, three, the technocrats who run these vast welfare states are not only well paid, but more importantly are able to garner cars, travel, and plush apartments as tax-free job related perks (cf. the current scandal in London). If being a “venture capitalist” is what wannabe Harvard kids in their 20s sought in the 1990s, being a bigwig Minister, with neo-classical office, state Mercedes, and official residence is the perennial European equivalent. This is a continent of Tom Daschles, who win by being exempt from the burden of government that they subject on others, and win again by having the contacts to sort out government contracts to crony-businesses.

My point? The more Europe professes to be egalitarian, the more cynical and conniving the people have become—almost as if the human craving for one’s own property and to make one one’s destiny cannot be denied by the state, but by needs will be channeled into what the state mandates as anti-social for most, but quietly a perk for a few.

230 Comments, 230 Threads

1.
~Paules

My father (b. 1928) told me that when he was growing up the people in his community regarded the hospital as “a place where people go to die.” The usual treatment for illness or injury was simply to lay in bed till you recovered (or died). The doctor’s job was to make you as comfortable as possible. I fear that government controlled medical care will turn back the clock to the bad old days.

I also fear that government will do to medicine what it’s done to public education. The typical school district in this country employs one bureaucrat for every two classroom teachers. What does this army of government clerks contribute to education? Mostly administrative demands that only serve to burden classroom teachers with unnecessary work. The average teacher in my state survives five years in the classroom. If health care workers in Europe are demoralized and surly, I can well understand why.

The perception by a populace that the laws are fair and equitable leads to an orderly and law-abiding society. Where fairness is lacking, it makes no sense to obey the law. People will act in what they perceive is their own self-interest even if it means breaking the law. Equality of outcome (aka “economic justice”) gives license to the poor to steal, incentive for the middle-class to cheat, and opportunity to the elites for wholesale looting. Socialism will make lawbreakers of us all.

“Mr. Christian!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Increase the daily floggings until morale improves.”

“Aye, captain.”

Is the American populace on the verge of mutiny? I hope so. I sincerely hope so.

“Socialism will always blame the patient (just watch when it comes here), I suppose for drawing on collective resources, and to focus on public enemies whose weight, smoking, or lifestyle (I do not smoke or drink, but exercise and am of reasonable weight) have betrayed the public ideal.”

Funny, I’ve taken to re-”calibrating” my nomenclature to describe it in just such medical terminology-

This is not even a regime, it is a cabal, a cartel, it is a tumor.

Euro socialism, with its tragic and worst-of human-nature operatives in a filthy hospital is one thing, and a horror story if ever there was one, but euthanasiast, drinking-water-neutering mad scientist Holdren is an unaccountable, unelected, unconformed by the senate, un-oversight protection-in-congress czar, and he is just one of many tsars. Take for example, Tsar Jones, and see what he converted to in prison before before he became czar. (and it wasn’t Islam). he is now a repented and confirmed Lysenko/leninist with some freaky ideas of his own.

In scientific method there is a distinction between accuracy and precision, and with this administrations constant moving of the goal posts, race hustling and race baiting, and those hidden creeps not in his cabinet, one is hard pressed to describe what is going on now in words with accuracy, let alone precision.

My son (26 years old) and his wife are missionaries in Austria. He was showing me some photos of a street festival in Vienna on his last trip home a month ago. He pointed out that no one smiles over there, and sure enough, the proof was in the photos. Hundreds of people, and nary a one was smiling! I remarked that, “Maybe they have nothing to smile about,” and my son agreed.

You see, Austria is one of those great, unchurched European countries: They are literally “spiritless.” Spirit-less, if you understand what I mean. This is the real tragedy of Socialism; it is spirit-deadening.

I am surprised that someone as intelligent and educated as yourself doesn’t realize that whatever minor problems Europe suffers from are due to insufficient socialism. True, socialism may never have been implemented satisfactorily, but this time, ah this time, we’ll get it right, yes we will!

Insightful as always. I have a friend and teaching colleague, a wonderful Armenian woman, who has only recently been pursuing a master’s degree. She has been shocked and appalled by the rampant and unthinking marxism apparent in virtually every class she has taken. As she puts it, Communism lost the political war but is winning the ideological war in the universities. Unlike most Americans under the age of 50, she grew up under communism and is anything but happy about the course Obama and the left would love to force upon us.

Too many Americans don’t know anything about Communism, which is just a more brutal and hurried form of socialism. The dictatorship of the proletariat is what it was called. True, pure communism couldn’t be attained because of capitalist forces that opposed the unlimited wonders of socialism, so in the interim, during the brave, patriotic struggle for true communist equality, the “scientific communists” would be more equal. They would have the limos and the vacation homes, the expensive clothing and foods unavailable to the common man, and because their burden of leading the revolution was so great and noble, because they alone knew how to achieve the great worker’s paradise where all would be equal, receiving all that they needed, they would exercise absolute life and death power as well. As you’ve so well explained it, a far less murderous version of this exists in much of Europe, and President Obama can’t wait to get there. He, of course, will be the head scientific communist and will reap those benefits.

Lord Acton was right. “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Now Obama and his thugs threaten, assault, lie, steal elections, commit election fraud, free thuggish political fellow travelers who harass honest voters, and tell anyone who opposes them to shut up and take what their better give. I suspect that if Obama and the left achieve the kind of power for which they so obviously and crudely lust, their absolute corruption will be very rapid indeed. American sense this, they sense that whatever Obama says, he means the opposite. They know that Obaman health care will mean suffering and early death to segments of society out of favor. I pray that enough Americans sense it, and that they will stop Obama.

“Socialism will always blame the patient (just watch when it comes here)”

Why the pessimism? The odds are against that occurring. We simply must be persistent. The polling data shows that our foes are on the run. Our host appears to be suffering from “classics fatalism.” This apparently is often the price that one perhaps pays for intensely studying the horrors of the past. One is tempted to believe that bad things are inevitable. We should therefore cut our wrists, drink a glass of wine, and watch our civilization being destroyed from on top of a mountain.

It’s very rewarding to come here and feel that every so often the professor’s observations are so right on that they invoke the feeling again that this was his best post ever. This is the best blog.

Although I confess that I’m not altogether comfortable thinking about an impacted staghorn calculus kidney stone. YeeOuch.

I know lots of folks from the former Soviet Union. I used to sell suits, socks, shirts and ties in a mall. They said people like me became very wealthy back in the old country. Supply was so lean, clothing salesmen were bribed handsomely to say when the next shipment would come in.

‘Organize’ is the way of Communism, unions, and President Obama. So left wing provocateurs are organized, show up, act crazy and are planted to give the impression that Republicans are organized and crazy.

BHO is not of America due to his circumstances when growing to “manhood”. He is anti American. He is more Euro than Europeans. His mother was an indoctrinated communist who by indoctrination and petty anti American recrimination held to its “Utopian Subversive” language as her ideal.

BHO’s mother did not see the terrible and proven destruction of the humanity in humans that the communist Utopian sirens song was. She was in America. No empathy needed on her part. No understanding needed.

The Utopian subversive language of communism/socialism destroys productive unselfish Humanity much like and as within the Europe VDH is now describing today.

So far in America the “intellectuals” and the power hungry have not been able to bring Utopia to power completely. Not Yet. An objective look however of the “Great Society” program in America shows is destructive power to individual humans and families.

It does not produce Utopia but cynicism and loss of integrity in Humans. The Utopian ideals sold vanish like the vapid pipe dreams that they are when the indoctrinated have a chance to get their way. America beware.

BHO like his mother, does not see the Utopian subversion because he lived in America under the American “umbrella” of individual freedoms. His AA and PC indoctrination and “dreams” are good enough, no demonstration needed.

The needed American individual freedoms BHO, his mentors and followers dismiss because it is easy to do. After all the Utopian replacement rationalizes; individual shortcomings, affirmative action and political correctness.

AA and PC are small minded. They do not create the robust individual American that is needed, it creates a “mental midget”, a “90 pound weakling” that flies in flocks or in packs more like lemmings than humans. Just “Fearful” victims, con artists, extortionists, Al Sharptons, a Harvard Gates, and his buddy BHO the POTUS.

The Utopian replacement of individual responsibility justifies all of the human “sins” of weakness. It creates hate for “others” not in the “group”.

This hate occurs within the same society and country. Nothing “happy” about it. Just Europe, static classes, and class warfare and petty short sighted selfish goals. VDH shows this to be so.

BHO and his like have a mentality of anti Americanism that exists and is grounded in the knowledge and very well understood human “weakness” of rationalization. A BHO like product of this weakness or process is similar to a fish not recognizing the water that he lives in, that gives him life.

The “water” allows him to “be” but the life giving water is “unknown” to him. He does not understand it and never will. His rationalizations do not require him to look and after all he is a fish. Fish, a word for indoctrinated idiot. It is a good fit.

The BHO’s in America are examples of the terrible toll political correctness and affirmative action are taking on America.

Thomas Sowell is also an example of political correctness and affirmative action because America may no longer create men like Thomas Sowell due to affirmative action and political correctness.

That is a terrible price for America to pay and we are now seeing in BHO and his indoctrinated, intellectual, piss ant mentors and followers the results that may well be nothing less than the loss of America.

No greater loss to a country than not being able to create a Thomas Sowell within its population. No greater loss to a country than to create by design and results of AA and PC a BHO and his like in America. A parasitic destroyer with a sirens song. What an enemy of the state and well fare of America.

BHO and his like have now created a politically powerful indoctrinated subversive 5th column using worn out Utopian language of subversion.

This subversion is supported by a MSM designed to wreak the country by essentially destroying the ability of America to create responsible individual Americans. Responsible individuals who do not buy into this Utopian mush and theft of individual freedoms for the benefit of a few.

Thomas Sowell, once contemplated and studied Communism and its Utopian language. How is it that he is a keystone person for America whose thoughts on America are needed for America to survive, .

For a Thomas Sowell, It would be predictable that being an intellectual with tremendous power and integrity he would contemplate the Utopian language and value of Communism when growing up in a tough America that could be routinely racist.

In the end it was Thomas Sowell’s essential American values and the power of his intellect that allowed him to see the subversive Utopian language for what it was, and what it led to. He concluded that it was worse than the America he grew up in. Not Utopian perfect but real America.

TS knew he could succeed in America. Even with racism, America and Americans understood and appreciate strong individual human achievement and someone who can carry his own “load”, someone who is worth his “salt”. Someone who helps others with his own “sweat”.

Not someone like a BHO or Soto-mayor who have been carried by AA and PC to the extent they are destroying and subverting America. They don’t help anyone but they will distribute your hard earned money to maintain power.

TS being American to his core understood this even in the face of racist hardships. Most Americans were and are not racist by any measurement. Over 500,000 American dead in the Civil war proved something to those that care to “see”.

This sorting out for TS was done in the grip of real hardships for African Americans, not unlike earlier generations of immigrants such as the Irish and Italians.

However African Americans had it tougher after the Civil war freed them but just as a very hot furnace makes the best steel, a Thomas Sowell emerged and he is still with us.

No such person will be developed in the AA and PC America of today.

Europeans did not have the advantage of Growing up in America. BHO did not have the Advantage that Thomas Sowell had.

Thomas Sowell developed his values in a tough America before affirmative action and political correctness destroyed something that all humans need, the recognition that the individual is supreme and responsible. No state or social program will work without this fundamental principle underpinning it. It is a law of nature that communists/socialists do not yet understand and never will. It does not fit nor allow their need for power over others.

PC and AA is a destructive indoctrination which is the same identical indoctrination process that the Utopian language of communist revolution is grounded in.

The Utopian BHO language is now going after Health Care, it has taken over the Auto Industry, it will destroy the private health Insurance Industry, It supports special interest groups like the lawyers and is now attacking citizens who disagree with this loss of individual choice and freedoms.

No new Thomas (TS) Sowell’s being created here now in America. What a loss!

Great post as always.
I am currently turning around a company in the UK. We have here the perfect illustration of the nanny state mentality. In every bathroom in our company we are obliged to display a poster developed by the government which is an illustrated 13 step procedure for properly washing ones hands – complete with the correct hand movements and time for each step. The amazing thing is that this does not even evoke much comment from our folks – and none at all from those younger than 50.
Perhaps a small thing but truly telling.

Dear Mr. Hanson,
you’ve only seen the mediterraneum. And you might be right in your view.

I know quite a few people (me including) that made their way in our society. They started with far less, worked hard, got luck and ended with a career, a house and a few kids. So it’s not all that bad over here.

And we might move more towards free market, at least we try. Now that the US stop growing for at least the next three years someone got to buy our stuff. With luck the chinese or indians need some factories we can deliver.

“The vast majority of citizens lives in apartments, even in smaller towns and villages. Cars are tiny.”

Look at Europe’s map. Then look at the USA map. See the difference?

“Prices are higher than in the states (sic); income is lower” . . . “The number of Gucci like stores selling overpriced label junk like 200 Euro eye-glass frames and 1000 Euro leather bags to socialists is quite amazing.”

Uhhh?

“When I talk to well-off Italians and Greeks who have substantial homes by the sea not available to most others, one of three realities leak out: one, they have family money made decades ago by their ancestors that includes ancestral estates”

“In each case, the care was terrible. A sole lonely doctor or maverick nurse in two cases saved my life,”

They saved your life.

” . . . the greedy who go to Vegas and the Super bowl, the Neanderthal who cling to their guns, the dissidents known as Nazis, stooges, mobs, and the well-dressed who dare to become rude to the Congresspeople.”

‘Real’ Americans never will be Europeans . . .

I guess you didn’t have to take this European trip to see the similarities. But it helps to compare.

People are talking politics in line at cash registers in numbers and intensity that I’ve never seen before. The unintended consequences of the very short Age Of Obama is that Americans are asserting their preference to remain American. This being an Army town, there is a great deal of knowledge about the German medical plan and it ain’t pretty.

“This is a continent of Tom Daschles”, my God, what a thought!!!!! And this is what they think (and they’re stupid and sanctimonious enough to actually believe it) we should have here? Doc, you nailed it again, particularly how it ties into the Obama/Clinton “I feel your pain, but I’ll save you after I eat my Waygu steak” hypocrisy.

David Thomson, I usually agree with you, but, if you think ObambiCare or any other of the Euro trash the Demos want to foist on us is dead, you’re kidding yourself. Until Pelosi’s and Dingy Harry’s super-majorities in Congress are shown the door, this vampire can rise again (what’s the difference between this and HillaryHealth?). Fortunately, a lot of the younger people in the Tea Parties are getting an education in bad government the teacher unions never gave them and will remember for a long time.

Insanity rules ! We are as Dr. Hanson points out morphing into Europe. The America I grew up in is gone and it looks like it may never be revived. They have duped us just as Hitler , Castro and Mao duped their country men. They will coming for the weapons soon. Socialism cannot exist when citizens are armed.
The Townhall meetings are proof Citizens are tired of the path the Donkeys are leading us down. Perhaps there is still hope ?
American Christian Infidel
Michael Canzano

Mr. Hansen,
Thanks for the insight on the Socialist Europe in our future. I have traveled to Europe regularly on business over the last 20 years and have learned another concerning aspect of their caste-like education system.

Most central European countries have national testing of all students around the 4th or 5th grade. The testing determines whether you go down the college prep path and “gymnasium” high school, to technical school to prepare for apprenticeship as a clerk or customer service person, or trade school and you will be a laborer worker.

It is nearly impossible to jump levels later in school or your work life. The laborers are all branded with orange or blue jumpusits that they all wear for work. There is a subtle class treatment of one level over another.

Good article as usual. But the economic system you’re describing isn’t strictly Socialism, although it’s influenced by Socialist ideas…it would more properly be called corporatism or economic Fascism.

Real Socialists wanted the government (ie, them) to actually *run* the economy; they wanted to get their hands on the farms and steel mills and railways and really believed they could do a better job with them than their existing capitalist owners. They saw economic prosperity and growth as very importnt. Economic Fascists have no desire to actually *run* productive enterprises, which they believe to be beneath contempt–they want to be above it all, giving orders to the inferior (in their view) people who *do* actually create goods & services, but never taking any responsibility for the outcomes.

To vivo: As one of your so-called Neanderthals that clings to my guns I have only this to say to you-why don’t you head on across the pond and take up residence? We don’t need cancers like you here in America. Rather, you and your ilk need to be excised and sent on to the incinerator. The health of the Republic must be restored!

I think the american version would be much less pleasant then the european model.

The loss and continued errosion of individual rights (what made the USA the country it was) will reduce america to 3rd world country.

community organisers have never brought anything good to society but bring divisiveness, bitterness and confrontation. they promote mob rule and pit one group against another. they make people who were content, uncontent. they shift what should be personal responsiblity on others.

I am not american but I watch the destruction of the USA with profound sadness. through out history the Marxists (even before they were known as marxists) have tried to impose their view on others. to see it happening now in the USA is just sad. DEMOCRACY has become mob rule.

Dr. Hanson,
“I am again reminded how different their form of socialism is, and yet how closely it resembles the model that Obama seeks for America.”

I must respectfully disagree with this statement. As you have said yourself, look at what he does, not what he says. What Obama really wants cannot be known by anyone except the Fraud himself, but his entire background and actions to date point to something far worse than anything Europe has now. Something that the Soviet Union had, something that Nazi Germany had and something that Communist China is gradually trying to get rid of. Total state control.

You describe the Europe I knew when I lived and worked there for ten years in the 70s.

I’ve just returned from a month’s tour in Europe. Everything I used to know has a grown worse.

I also worked in Communist (the real commies) countries in the 70s where no one ever smiled, niether did they work. The contrast between Europe socialist states and the Soviet states proved the truth of the saw: “communisim is socialism with a gun to your head when socialism doesn’t work”. Then, of course, communism doesn’t either, so it just gets worse.

Welfarism didn’t work here, so the 60s radicals now grown up are taking out their guns and forcing us down the next step to socialism. ‘Darkness at Noon’.

A few selected comments:
1) What you are depicting in Europe is not socialism and judging by the size of goverment budget as % of the GDP in various countries not even a Europe with significantly higher state intervention.
2) Salaries in western Europe are nearing those in the USA especially with a favourable euro-dollar exchange rate in terms of PPP and in nominal terms higher. Eastern Europe still has some catching up to do to put it midly but with less than two decades of free market this is to be expected.
3) While it’s often mentioned that some of the USA’s richest states are considerably richer than the USA average, the poorer ones are often not mentioned. Are states like Georgia really a reason for the USA to be proud of over “socialist” Europe.
4)Reference to people being happy is also problematic in this case. From friends that have visited Cuba, happy people can be seen in the streets (more need not be said).
5) Choosing Greece and Italy are an unfortunate choise of countries representativew of Europe at least at present. Both countries face the severest financial problems in the EU and Greece is palgued by a corrupt government labelled “school for scandal” by The Economist. Why don’t you tell us about the problems in “socialist” Sweden and Finland or at least Denmark?
6)Social tensions described in countries in Europe is the result of injustices that have been perpetuated by governments. However:
a) Workers unions have a considerable amount of power in America as well (e.g. auto industry)and I believe people object to this. But this is the essential problem. This is not the reason though that “capitalist” American cars are probably the worst thing after a Lada in contrast to the “tiny” cars that are produced in “socialist” Europe.
b) Social/Syndicate tensions and scalling has/have its/their equivalent in the USA on the racial level.
7)The point made about hospitals and the health care systems are almost hard to be taken seriously and I am most apologetic for this near offensiveness. One cannot compare hospitals between countries in the Mediteranean (north= Europe, south=Africa as if northern Africa ever had an egalitarian state) over a period of 36 years (as if nothing has changed over the last 4 decdes in southern Europe) and from there draw conclusions about socialism.This is completely beside the point that one should search pretty hard to catch an E-coli infection/disease in say Germany.
8) It might also be worth noting that Europe, nomatter what conficts may prevail on the social,workforce level is more egalitarian than the USA in the sense that European states have welfare staes that have universal coverage. The USA have the likes of Medicare/Medicaid which drain billions of dollars from the state budget- and yet people still pay from the own pocket (which Europeans can spend on 200$ glasses) and is ranked as one of the worst and most inefficient costwise among countries of the developed world. In this light it would be rather awkward to be accusing Europe of wasting money on burocrats as it is done in this article.
9) Since this article lamments “socialism” in Europe, I can only point out this dislike for luxury goods (“overpriced label junk”?)as hypocritical. I thought that since there is a free market what I choose to buy is up to me.(not to mention American lack of class)
10) One last point:”huge sophisticated markets grow for European goods”
Europe sells to markets that will buy its products including countries like Brazil, Russia, China and India or even Australia and Japan. This does not make “socialist” Europe indebted to America.

Quote ~Paul:
The perception by a populace that the laws are fair and equitable leads to an orderly and law-abiding society. Where fairness is lacking, it makes no sense to obey the law. People will act in what they perceive is their own self-interest even if it means breaking the law.
….
The IRS depends upon taxpayers respecting the law. They cannot enforce the tax code upon 300 million odd. It is only because of voluntary compliance that they collect a high percentage of taxes. When belief in the fairness of the tax law erodes, as it will, the collected amount will fall. Witness the ‘after hours’ tax-free jobs observed in Graecia.
There is expectation that increases in taxes on the higher earning citizens will induce them to protect their earnings, or move them to less confiscatory locales. This does not bode well for tax collection. Ha ha, the beast may yet be starved, no?
tom

to that, compare the ages of our cities, when architectures weren’t ment for “cars” but for pedestrians and vans with horses.

Prices are higher than in the states; income is lower (The government taxes you to pay for things like “free” college, so you won’t have much to spend on antisocial things like your Wal-Mart plastic Christmas Tree or your second K-Mart plasma TV.)

uh, not really, take the rates for UK, France, Germany, Luxemburg (the highest in world wilde), Belgian, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Norvege, SWede, Danemark… people, for the average, get higher incomes than in US’, of course not comparable with eastern EU countries, and mediterranean EU countries, where the average paid hour is 2 times to half or a third lower than in the earliest EU members’.

This description of European hypocrisy reminds me of this interchange in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Gondoliers…

Giuseppe. Well, as to that, of course there are kings and kings. When I say that I detest kings, I mean I detest bad kings.

Don Alhambra. I see. It’s a delicate distinction.

Giuseppe. Quite so. Now I can conceive a kind of king — an ideal king — the creature of my fancy, you know — who would be absolutely unobjectionable. A king, for instance, who would abolish taxes and make everything cheap, except gondolas —

Marco. And give a great many free entertainments to the gondoliers —

Giuseppe. And let off fireworks on the Grand Canal, and engage all the gondolas for the occasion —

Marco. And scramble money on the Rialto among the gondoliers.

Giuseppe. Such a king would be a blessing to his people, and if I were a king, that is the sort of king I would be.

Socialism presents us with a seductive bargain that those who love God cannot accept when they understand its implications:

We can build a successful society that depends on my ability to live at someone else’s expense if only I will allow someone else to live at my expense.

Because the sale is finalized when we are lead to believe that we will get the better part of the bargain, under close analysis, this offer is built upon the violation of three Commandments: lies, coveting and theft (under the color of law, but still theft).

Those who have eyes to see can clearly understand how this pervasive compromise is so contrary to timeless moral precepts.

There is a story. Someone who is still homosexual left the United States for Europe, because he thought he would be accepted more in Europe. Either he returned, or is thinking about it, because he feels safer in the United States. The effect of europe upon him was, less judgment of his lifestyle, but less willingness to protect him from those who would put homosexuals to death, as the Sons of Allah have already done so.

Now, I am saying this as someone who stands up
to “conventional wisdom” via saying that homosexuality is a profoundly poor way to communicate the reality than men and women are
different, and there is more involved than men
and women to bring about these differences.

“David Thomson, I usually agree with you, but, if you think ObambiCare or any other of the Euro trash the Demos want to foist on us is dead, you’re kidding yourself.”

I did not say that the danger is over. On the contrary, I adamantly believe that we can NEVER put down our guard! The struggle for freedom is never ending. We may even presently be paying the price for the nonchalance resulting from the glorious years of the Reagan administration. Nonetheless, the odds are on our side. The Rasmussen daily tracking poll, for instance, apparently now shows Obama popularity to be at 47% among those likely to vote in future elections. That’s great news.

#17, you are quite correct. During our time in Switzerland our children had friends, 10-12 years old, who were in the process of being “sorted” for their future lives as doctors, lawyers, or plumbers. There is no such thing as a “late bloomer” in the European school systems – a child’s potential as measured at age 12 sets his or her destiny, fixed and unchangeable. There’s no such thing as upward mobility. That’s why there’s graffiti everywhere, from angry youth who know their lives and labors are a form of slavery to pay for the early retirements of older folks, who will live well into their 80s and 90s, spending nearly half their lives on government pensions. Our next door neighbors in our small Swiss town – lovely folk who were immensely kind to us – were in their early 50s and living on full retirement. With birth rates falling and fewer and fewer young people available in the work force, this system is doomed to failure.

A point hinted but not directly mentioned is that socialism gives shelter to racism, antisemitism. The economics of envy and class hatred are the roots of socialism. With less wealth, people feel a need to take from others. Minorities in Europe and communist countries routinely face discrimination that is caused and nourished by government policies.

Contrary to common thought, Blacks do not fare well in any socialist country. Cuba may give a Utopian image of racial equality, but, surprise surprise, blacks are treated as slaves and are in the bottom rung of all classes (see http://www.therealcuba.com for evidence). The Castro enforces this racism but tells the world another story. Other countries are similar.

Is Obama aware of the connection between racism and socialism or does he simple think that he will be in power forever and will be able to stop it?

The Greeks have a word for it – “fakilaki”. I’m sure the good Dr. can attest to observing its many uses during his visits to Greece. It’s stuck since the socialist glory days of Papandreou of massive govt handouts and daily 5hr Frappe sessions when very little productive was ever achieved. Greeks sat around drinking coffee all day and made a living ripping off tourists and each other (when opportunity called), all the while govt grew larger, hyperinflation went through the roof, lowly wages remained low and Greece ultimately became the basket case of Europe.

The fakilaki (envelope of cash) is so entrenched in Greek culture that I dare say very few Greeks will ever get by without having on the sly slip it into a Dr’s robe pocket to advance an appointment or emergency care, and or under the desk of one of thousands of bureaucrats who with a stroke of a pen or rubber stamp could cancel a fine or approve a EU farming subsidy.

Greece’s love affair with socialism has only bred contempt and malaise. Their constant whining about hardships over decades hides the fact that many know they cannot survive without the black-market, or by selling a family lot of land every few years to wealthy foreigners.

Looking in from the outside you would think the only time Greeks ever get off their behinds is to attend a leftist rally, any number of union protests or to out and out riot and destroy private property and their city centers.. then Greeks complain and wonder why real foreign investment/interest has never taken off there seriously.

The progressives/socialists there have done little but keep that country behind, the few successes we have seen come from that country are exceptions and are testament to those who with time-old entrepreneurial spirit have managed to advance somewhat prosperously, but, again not without the dreaded fakilaki…

The more often young, college-aged Americans goes to Europe during summers, the more likely they are so easily taken in by European socialism and hedonism. Once they return to America, they bring European socialist and hedonist ideas with them.

Now you have Obamaniacs who toured Europe wanting America to become more like Europe!

You miss the point as usual. Yes, apartment living is the norm in a more urbanized society. But the point the professor is making is that most Europeans don’t own their place of residence unless it has been passed down via inheritance. Got that? Two-thirds of Americans accumulate enough wealth to own a place even if it’s only a condo. Europeans simply can’t save enough to enter the ownership class. This is what happens when you combine high tax rates with a high cost of living.

Let me illustrate another point the professor was making. When I visited Rhodes as a much younger man, I couldn’t afford a hotel room. I did manage to rent a bit of roof space under the stars with other young travelers. Meanwhile, on the streets below the goods on offer included fur coats, expensive jewelry, and fashion accessories. If you are a merchant, it’s more profitable to stock your 10×10 shop with expensive merchandise for the super wealthy than to cater to the backpacking crowd. Europe is stratified along economic lines.

Vivo, if you really want socialism, I suggest you move to Amsterdam. You can hang out with the junkies and sleep twelve to a room in a canal barge. And it’s all free, even the drugs. Europe: where an education guarantees that bums can panhandle in a dozen different languages. Now you’re talking!

One of my former neighbors was from England. In England he had been an engineering professor at a major university. He saw one of the older professors shuffling down the hall and it dawned on him, “There I go in another 30 years.” Because he was not from the upper class he would never get anywhere. He came to the US, got a job as a VP in a tecnical company, and later owned a metal fabrication plant. He said he would never have accomplished that in England.

If Europe were so hellish we’d be seeing a lot more immigrants from there. We don’t, because life is basically comfortable and Europeans are generally happy.

Folks;

Let’s keep in mind that no place is perfect. Some aspects of Europe work better than they do here and vice versa.

To the poster who complained about unsmiling Austrians;

Some societies do not smile as easily in public as Americans. I have done much traveling and people from all over the world carry themselves differently according to their culture. Don’t misinterpret cultural differences by american standards.

The western world is headed into a new dark ages. Socialism leads to serfdom and multiculturalism will lead to war. The Europeans have forgotten their western heritage and have embraced philosophies that demean the human spirit and allow the elite to dominate the common man under the quise of caring for him. These same elites have embraced a one world vision and therefore eagerly sacrifice their national identities in the name of peace or profit. They no longer control their own borders and are gradually being overrun by the disciples of Islam.

We lived in Italy for three years and they are the perfect example of a failing state. The people do not respect their own laws and the government has proved unable to protect its borders from invasion. Meanwhile, the typical Italian laments the American work ethic and acts like European passivity is a higher calling. If the United States follows the same path, then all is lost.

Europeans were softened up to accept socialism by two wars that turned cities into rubble. Europe tends to be more homogenous than America, with better social cohesion and rule-following, whereas in America the bedrock principle is “beat the system”. The permanence of European socialism leaves no avenue except public service for bright non-aristocrats, whereas in America, government attracts underachievers and dullards. All of this is to say that as bad as things are in Europe, they are already much, much worse in America under socialism.

People seem to forget that our elected officials work for “us”..us, the United States…not the other way around…

You guys that are bent on “socialism” need to be better informed. It does not and has never worked. Why do you want the government to support you? It goes to show that you are a leech. Because there is no free, anywhere. Someone ,somewhere is working to make the $$$ that give you the “free”…

Why are you so jealous of people that do not need government help? If you believe socialism is so great, go spend a couple of years in Greece or such. Live the life. Don’t try to pull the US down to that level.

Or better yet talk to a veteran of the wars that have been fougt to keep our country free of such b.s.

#24 GDP
GDP makes the case that Obama’s government-controlled sick care insurance plan will be a failure because other U.S. sick care programs are failures. GDP shows that such failures prevent us from buying really cool sunglasses. At the end he makes another point, but I can’t figure out what it is:

“The USA have the likes of Medicare/Medicaid which drain billions of dollars from the state budget- and yet people still pay from the own pocket (which Europeans can spend on 200$ glasses) and is ranked as one of the worst and most inefficient costwise among countries of the developed world. In this light it would be rather awkward to be accusing Europe of wasting money on burocrats[sic] as it is done in this article.”

Some societies do not smile as easily in public as Americans. I have done much traveling and people from all over the world carry themselves differently according to their culture. Don’t misinterpret cultural differences by american standards.

Nonsense. Look at some of the pictures of the Austrians when the Germans were marching in to Austria in the Anschluss. They were grinning ear-to-ear.

One of my former neighbors was from England…. He came to the US, got a job as a VP in a tecnical company, and later owned a metal fabrication plant. He said he would never have accomplished that in England.

As an interesting aside, read The Significance of the Martian Frontier
by Robert Zubrin. Regardless of whether or not you believe that the colonization of Mars is worthwhile, he has some very interesting things to say about why our ancestors came to America in the first place (and why some sort of frontier is essential in the world).
In particular:

The problem was not that there were insufficient natural resources to go around — medieval Europe was not heavily populated, and there were plenty of forests and other wild areas — the problem was that all the resources were owned. A ruling class had been selected and a set of ruling institutions, ideas and customs had been selected, and by the law of “Survival of the Firstest,” none of these could be displaced. Furthermore, not only had the leading roles been chosen, but so had those of the supporting cast and chorus, and there were only so many such parts to go around. If you wanted to keep your part, you had to keep your place, and there was no place for someone without a part.

The New World changed all that by supplying a place in which there were no established ruling institutions, an improvisational theater big enough to welcome all comers with no parts assigned. On such a stage, the players are not limited to the conventional role of actors — they become playwrights and directors as well. The unleashing of creative talent that such a novel situation allows is not only a great deal of fun for those lucky enough to be involved, it changes the view of the spectators as to the capabilities of actors in general. People who had no role in the old society could define their role in the new. People who did not “fit in” in the Old World could discover and demonstrate that far from being worthless, they were invaluable in the new, whether they went there or not.

The New World destroyed the basis of aristocracy and created the basis of democracy. It allowed the development of diversity by allowing escape from those institutions that imposed uniformity. It destroyed a closed intellectual world by importing unsanctioned data and experience. It allowed progress by escaping the hold of those institutions whose continued rule required continued stagnation, and it drove progress by defining a situation in which innovation to maximize the capabilities of the limited population available was desperately needed. It raised the dignity of workers by raising the price of labor and by demonstrating for all to see that human beings can be the creators of their world. In America, from Colonial times through the 19th century when cities were rapidly being built, people understood that America was not something one simply lived in — it was a place one helped build. People were not simply inhabitants of their world. They were makers of their world.

In 1790, the founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke, wrote a scathing and highly prescient indictment of what he termed the French Revolution’s radical “new dealers”- the men who would disastrously attempt to refashion society and its citizens according to novel and abstruse political ideas. Unfortunately, his critique was largely ignored until the seeds of the poisonous new (deal) ideology had scattered and taken root all over the globe.

A century and a half later America was in the midst of the Great Depression. FDR proudly (but without a trace of irony, or even awareness of Burke’s insight) labeled his vast, centralizing, economic plan the “New Deal.” Far from hastening economic recovery, it prolonged America’s suffering for seven long years.

Such examples notwithstanding, America’s hitherto conservative, “Burkean” character had, for the most part, kept us reliably immune from the left’s most destructive innovations. However, the corrosive policies of men like Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Lyndon Johnson (and other so-called “progressives”) have taken their toll, and Obama stands proudly in their camp.

How have these men changed America? By making us an increasingly European-ized nation—one in which the size, scope and power of government have grown in direct inverse proportion to the individual’s sense of responsibility, resourcefulness and initiative. The sad result is that we are now a far cry from being the people we once were, and the more we hand over to today’s “new dealers” like Barak Obama and Nancy Pelosi, the more the once great spirit of this land will wither.

My son (26 years old) and his wife are missionaries in Austria. He was showing me some photos of a street festival in Vienna on his last trip home a month ago. He pointed out that no one smiles over there, and sure enough, the proof was in the photos. Hundreds of people, and nary a one was smiling! I remarked that, “Maybe they have nothing to smile about,” and my son agreed.
————————–
Sorry but this is the most stupid post i have ever read. first missionaries in Austria??? maybe nobody smiled at them because they have not been interested in what your “kids” had to say? and btw. have you ever thought that there are culutural differences? only because people may not running around smiling to every one all day long does not nessesary mean that they are not happy. let me ask you a question did they all weep at this street festival because living in austria is so depressing? i guess not.

Just some quibbles – Greece is really different from northern Europe. Cars are small in Europe not just because of the taxes on gasoline, but also because of a fundamental problem of most European cities – they are much older than the age of automobiles. This results in an inability to park a large car in many urban environments. Americans also are choosing smaller cars, not because of gas taxes (these are lower in the US) but because the overall cost of fuel is going up – this is due to market fluctuations of the price of oil. (mostly up, and that oil for the most part is assumed to be approaching peak oil, which means supplies are assumed to be dwindling) This is about the market and reactions to the market, not about socialism.

I assure you, my experience with socialised health care in Germany is a very positive one, without it I would not be alive right now, and I can compare it to having been sick in Egypt, which definitely was a very scary experience, and my experience of having been sick in the US without insurance, a member of the working poor without insurance, which was nearly a deadly one.

It is unfair to paint Europe as if it was all this nearly Communist world, the politicians in both conservative and center-left socialist circles know that classical socialism does not work, hence the level of reforms to privatise once-government owned businesses (post, rail, etc) and cut back government spending. I find it very amusing as an American who has lived outside the US for many years, to see Europe moving rightwards towards liberalism and incorporating spending reforms, and I mean that good kind of liberalism in a European sense which is mainly identified as libertarian and fiscal conservative in the US, just at the same time that the US tries to emulate Europe’s socialistic stance of ten years ago. The US is trying to be more European than Europe is, oddly enough.

This is the stupidest article I’ve ever read on this site. The author takes dozens of aspects of European culture including some that are breathtakingly inane: “few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning” and sticks them all in a box labelled “Caused by Socialism”.
It’s ridiculous, Europeans are different from us because they’re European you idiot! Socialism isn’t the cause of those differences it’s a result of the fact that they have a different culture with a different history. The author gives the impression that Europe is some cultural and political monolith with the same problems and successes shared throughout. This makes about as much sense as referring to North America as though it was a single country.

According to the latest census survey 2004-2005, published by INSEE, 57% of households are now homeowners. This is in line with the steady recognized each census: 53.8% in 1992, 54.3% in 1996, 56% in 2002. The share ownership is 80% rural suburban, 74% in remote rural areas, against 45% for Paris. Four out of five households living in a house they own against only one in four for those living in an apartment. In Brittany, Poitou Charentes and Limousin as the proportion of owners is the strongest. (Source: Indicator Bertrand 01/03/06)

@ 3 “You see, Austria is one of those great, unchurched European countries: They are literally “spiritless.” Spirit-less, if you understand what I mean.”

What? Austria is deeply Catholic. Maybe that doesn’t count as Christian in your book, but it is, like it or not. Cathedrals dot the landscape all over Europe, including Austria, indeed they are something I love very much. The religious art of European cathedrals is simply astounding.

There are parts of Europe that are less religious, sure – but Austria isn’t one of them! Indeed its one of the more conservative traditional countries of Europe.

It is true that many in Bavaria and parts of Austria are rather unsmiling in daily life, if you are photographing them going about their business, but its more in that “stiff upper lip” manner that the British also tend to have. I think you are just confused and unfamiliar with the culture in that part of Europe. Go visit a beerhall, you will find them smiling, or visit a lake in the summer, they are smiling then too. Of course they are smiling when they are having fun.

it’s not true for the rest of EU, where school is an obligation until 16, (some decide or are obliged to attend practice courses for short term professional issues, but still a professional bacalaureat can open them the path to universities) ; all programs cofounded.

It’s only when you choose a speciality for high-school that you get your job direction, could be scientific, humanities, technologic, artistic’s… and it’s not life determined for so at the end of the year of 1rst bacalaureat, you can still take another option for “terminale” (2nd bacaulaureat), and also change your university options each year…

But of course the best studends can enter into “grandes ecoles” where selection is made upon files and motivation

Neither America or Europe has a European future, you’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Not one prominent Conservative will come out for an end to mass immigration, both legal and illegal, even though it is clearly destroying the civilization, the nation, and the political and social ideas these Conservatives pretend to believe in. That sort of cowardice can never win. Poland survived the worst form of “Socialism” that can imposed on a nation, but it won’t survive if it adopts (and it will) the sick, suicidal idea of multiculturalism and the open borders that go with it.

“Mass transit is frequent and cheap, but often crowded and occasionally unpleasant. The stifled desire to acquire something—large house, car, deposit account—is of course not quite destroyed by socialism, but rather is channeled into a sort of cynicism and anger, often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning.”

Dr. Hanson, since I live in Europe, on behalf of the Europeans: Goodbye, and dont come back. Our sns and daughters are dying in AFghanistan too. We have plenty of fine youths.

“….to create so much red ink that we must raise taxes and redefine what constitutes income) must be passed immediately, without delay, now-or-never to stave off Biblical hunger, plague, and flood.

Or else!”

Case in point, according to the UN he world is ending in 4 months if we don’t do something about Global Warming! If somehow we are still alive after 4 months….I imagine they’ll give us another 4 months….

Re: parents and their dependents, there is one hopeful angle (from breath of the beast):
…No, that sound that the Mainstream News Media is doing its best to filter out and cast in a prejudicial light is the sound of people waking up from the dream of being held in the warm embrace of a motherly and progressive government that wants to make everything “all right” and realizing that they have been encircled in the cold embrace of the mother of all boa constrictors- The Progressive Left. It is the cry of people who have finally found their resistance to the personal charm and political capital of the new administration and realized that if there is any hope of stopping the slow but inexorable strangulation that is already under way, they must act with passion and urgency. Like me, they are not just disappointed; they are in despair and futile rage.
Link: http://breathofthebeast.blogspot.com/2009/08/warning-to-republicans-we-are-not-doing.html

I’m from Denmark. The country with the highest tax rate in the world. I can verify that every single sentence in this post is 100% accurate and true. Personally I try to look at health care as a networking issue. I make an effort of having as many friends as possible on the inside with doctors and other physicians, so I can call in personal favours and that way actually survive, if I become ill.

Even though I’m sad on your behalf for the road you are currently taking. there are some benefits for us in it.
The good thing for Europe about US going socialist is that we will no longer have to be envious. We are no longer going to have that annoying dream of making it big in the USA. USA will no longer make the best movies and music, win all the gold medals in the Olympics, make the best software, live in big houses. USA is going to be mediocre like the rest of us. It’s actually a relief. Sorry.

I make an effort of having as many friends as possible on the inside with doctors and other physicians, so I can call in personal favours and that way actually survive, if I become ill.

Which brings up yet another issue. When the government apparatus determines who gets what and when, not only do connections matter, but the potential for corruption is huge. If I need a $50,000 joint replacement, it’s well worth slipping $10,000 to a board member for a favorable outcome.

The USA will not become Europe and Europe will not be much like itself either in a few years, as George H. points out. People forget about demographics. When I lived in Paris a few years ago I was struck by how similar France and Europe in general are to the US in the 60s. The elites really haven’t a clue and are only now waking up to the big problems they have created. The US, on the other hand, is moving rapidly away from a European bourgeois culture to something more like, say, Brazil’s. It will never be like Europe is today. That’s part of the Left’s con game. Obama and American elites hate Europe, the virus that enslaved the world. Europe still has a relatively high level of gentile culture, a dying husk maybe, but still there in its manners, monuments and cathedrals which nourish the spirit and abet a sense of Christian civility and grandeur. America is a fading echo of European culture in deep, cultural transformation.

The idea rings clearly – that the affluent under a left regime are like people who stand on a roof, and who have pulled up the ladder; the American left longs for this as well. “I’ve got mine, too bad for you.” That, and the notion that inherited wealth is somehow cleansed, but anyone who actually goes out and gets sweat on their brow, and bloodies the hands with the distasteful things that commerce requires, is a bastard.

#78 Mr Lucky
Socialism isn’t really a form of government, it’s more of a policy. And in that regard it’s a question of degree. How much socialism do we want? There are some people in this country who view the FDA and the Federal Reserve as being unwarranted government interference in the economy. They are certainly socialist in a sense. In my opinion we have struck the right balance here in the US but I’m sure the French feel that they’ve struck a correct balance in their country.

Most of Europe is socialist, although socialism as a term is really too broad to be of much use. Any word that can be used to describe the government policies of England, Norway and China at the same time probably doesn’t convey a great deal of information. It would be useful if we could draw a distinction between “hard” and “soft” socialism for want of better terms.

My objection to the article is exactly what I said it is. Mr. Hanson confuses cause and effect with the culture of European nations shaped by their socialist governments rather than the other way around. He then proceeds to label their culture as “cynical and conniving” and blame socialism. It’s a neat trick.

Why is it that conservatives instinctively understand how deadly it is to remove the value of the individual from the culture? I’ve never traveled in Europe and couldn’t begin to frame or discuss these issues as he does, but as I read, I’m saying, “Right on” and also, “Well, THAT explains what I suspected….”

This is where the leftists have indeed underestimated us. They think that because we didn’t attend Institut Le Rosey or know someone who did that we can’t possible “know anything important.”

While they know many things that are not so, we live and know some very important things, among them that we still value above all, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Fascinating to have traveled so widely and learnt so little. All countries are different and all are good in some ways and bad in other ways. You have obviously visited one-two countries (out of 40+) in Europe with a few preconceived ideas and (shockingly!) had them verified. In the same way many Europeans visit the USA and find Americans fat, ignorant of the world and shallow (which they are not).

Take a look at any number of studies of Europeans and Americans and you will find they are all quite happy with their lives and the country they live in. You will also find that about the same number of people in Europe as in America make a “class journey” and go from poor to rich. I freely admit that Americans are more religious, so if that is your definition of a good and happy person then you win the argument. The European school system is not perfect (and different in each country), but then the millions of home-schoolers in the US are obviously of the same opinion. The tax revenue in Greece as percent of GDP was 32,1 percent, somewhat below the rate in the USA, so it is hardly taxes which are making people in Greece so miserable.

Just stating the obvious; Libya, Egypt and (most parts of) Turkey are not in Europe, so why the care you received there is of interest is a mystery.

68. Dick Turpin “Case in point, according to the UN the world is ending in 4 months if we don’t do something about Global Warming!”

…..but that’s good news~!!! If the world’s going to end in 4 months, then we don’t even have to worry about this healthscare crap or the tax & trade thing or the pending Illegal Immigration Improvement and Reform Thing.

I wonder if Col. obama will now put global Cooling/Warming/Thawing/Freezing to the head of his public TO-DO list in order to show support the UN? Naaa…..they’ll be hearing from him, most likely pinning their ears back for not checking with him before issuing an Unapproved Worldwide Threat.

I said on the day of the All Star baseball game that Obama has revealed his utter lack of American roots…. and he did it on the pitcher’s mound.

Or should I say in FRONT of the pitcher’s mound… but it still wasn’t close enough.

Every American kid who is the least bit athletic learns to throw a baseball.

Obama is very athletic, as his basketball chops bear witness.

But he DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO THROW A BASEBALL.

Call me an oversimplifier, but I think this is ENORMOUSLY telling. He is simply NOT an American kid grown up.

I’m 50 yrs old, fat and outta shape, and never played organized baseball in my life. But if you put me on the mound, I could do a creditable impersonation of a pitcher, albeit with half the ball speed.

Because I grew up in America, I know, and still remember, how to throw a baseball.

My friend, who is an American physician of Greek ancestry, had to go to Thessalonika to rescue his mother-in-law from socialized medicine. They were simply going to let her die because they would not spend the money to save her life, although she had a treatable and curable illness. He brought her back to Ohio, (she almost expired on the plane) hospitalized her, and at his own expense financed her treatment and surgery. It cost him $120,000 out-of-pocket. She is alive and well today, but no thanks to Europe’s version of Obamacare.

For those seeking government-run health care: be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

As usual very insightful observations.
I grew up in the 70s and 80s in India and saw what the socialistic minded political parties had done to its great potential. Socialistic policies did not help India recover and be on its way to greatness. It was open market reforms and the recognition that wanting better and better things for one and one’s family is not a vice but virtue.

My father worked in a government hospital and try as he did to make a difference, it was very futile. When government thinks that it knows better than you do and that it will decide how much of your earnings you can keep, individual motivation to try harder is destroyed.

I now go back to India and see the progress there, the end less optimism in the faces of its young people who are not shackled by socialistic policies and government controls but their own abilities and ambition. They are dreaming off the better house they will raise their kids in than the one they grew up in.

The leftist elitist who so fondly talk about single payer and other ideals have no idea what they are talking about. They should perhaps live in one of the socialist countries before they continue.

glad you found us like in the US sixties, yes we have smaller cars,though as performant as far as security, confort, speedness, but less greedy than your SUV… (that you can’t afford anymore) that’s why we are less dependant on the big oil companies, that would wage conflicts upon countries that contest their preheminence

Our elites aren’t coming from the Cro-magnons caverns, they attended the best schools, even got a degree in american universities for some of them(true for Chirac too, LMAO), though they are “written” in a historical tradition, and can’t, and or, don’t want to make policy like in the US

carry on, to make your gargelling, but we assist to the “crepuscule des dieux” performance

I am regular German reader of Pajamasmedia as well as quite a few other “conservative” American political websites. Over the years I have come to hold VDH in very high esteem, and I largely share his views and anlyses on, for instance, foreign policy matters or the genesis — and extremely nefarious impact — of the widespread anti-American animus in Europe.

However, this article is a disappointment. VDH seems to nourish a quite strong anti-European animus himself. He apparently largely travels the Old Continent looking out for pieces of corroborative evidence for his pre-conceived ideas and stereotypes about what is wrong in and with Europe. Unsurprisingly, he then finds what he searches for.

I’ve noticed this tendency before in other articles of his before, but here it perhaps finds its most concentrated and acrimonious expression yet.

To be sure, there is quite a bit wrong in and with Europe. But what VDH here presents is by and large a collection of, at best, only partial truths, which in turn are then often taken as the basis for sweeping generalizations.

On the other hand, no data seem to be allowed beyond VDH’s ideological filter which might have the potential to balance the picture of general gloom and meanness (in both of the term’s senses) which he presents.

Other readers have already pointed to quite a few problematic details in his diatribe. A few of them them are perhaps worth reiterating. For instance: Is is sound methodology to unhesitatingly generalize from data collected and experiences lived, it seems, virtually exclusively in Greece and Italy? How representative is what he saw there for, say, Germany, or Poland, or Norway?

Apartments/housing: I guess things vary with population density, do they not? In the Norwegian countryside, e.g., I believe people mostly own their plots and houses, whereas in the European demographic centers the housing situation is of course different.

Small(er) cars: Largely explicable (a) by the smaller distances that need to be covered, as well as (b) by the fact that European towns mostly date back to pre-motorized times and were thus not built, at least in their central parts, to accomodate large numbers of large vehicles. Let me hasten to add that the ridiculously high taxes on gas in most European nations of course also are a contributing factor.

I continue to be surprised that an author of such a discerning mind as VDH seems unable — or unwilling — to take a step back from himmself, scrutinize the sources of his own generalized anti-European animus and ultimately arrive at a more sober, measured,nuanced and at the same time less sweepingly vitriolic analysis of European life (not politics, of which he has, in my judgment, a better grasp).

There were many valid criticisms of the details of this article. There were also many valid supports of the message of this article.

What is Socialism? What effect does it have on society? Which attitudes can be attributed to it? Which attitudes are merely cultural? I think the wrong term is used.

Perhaps the better term is Collectivism. I think this defines the difference between the Left and the Right. This is the source of the friction. Each attitude is deadly to the other. The Right can’t help but feel revulsion at Collectivist parasitism. The Left feels we should all be One, living in Utopia, as soon as we put aside the individualistic divisiveness. We are irreconciliable.

I’ve known many Europeans. I speak a few of their languages. Speaking their language, even a bit, can get them to open up. The common thread I’ve heard was that they love it here. The people are more open and smiling. There’s more opportunity. It’s… liberating! These are invariably those who disdain Collectivism. They have come here to escape it, to swim in other than a fetid swamp abounding with leeches.

Surely, these are anecdotal experiences of mine, but they are numerous and consistent.

Sorry to hear that your had many experiences in foreign hospitals in Europe. You should really try one in Asia. I had the experience of a little food poisoning from a delicious ham sandwich in Tokyo. The line for BBQ eel was too long and I was hungry.

Oh well, we all have our weak spots.

All I can say was that getting on the plane, sitting in the latrine on a 747 for half of the flight, the wait of US Customs at SFO was nothing compared to getting to my actual doctor and literally feeling safe.

The rest of these fools who think Euro care is the best, or Cuba, or wherever, should have to go there and suffer the same ills we did for our jobs.

There are large cultural differences between Europe and the US, ranging from diversity to ethnicity to religion. But immigration and assimilation continues to be one of the major differences between the US and Europe. The EU has made it easier to ‘immigrate’ intranationally, but international immigration can be heavily influenced by locality. Hence Albanians do not typically immigrate to France, but they do immigrate to Greece. And mideastern muslims immigrate to France and Germany, but in those countries their naturalization rate can be very low.

Immigration in Europe will be an increasingly important phenomenom because countries in the EU have significantly lower birth rates than the US and other cuntries. This may cause EU to differ significantly from the US in how it assimilates and naturalizes of immigrants. It is likely that EU immigration will result in governmental change.

History has shown a somewhat stable level of political diversity in the US, in that the Democrats and Republican parties are often equally matched. Furthermore, Obama’s election shows that the US cannot be a racist nation. However, Obama may trivialize this accomplishment. Obama has put US failures and successes on equal footing. Europeans can choose to perceive unconditional US failure as a fundamental flaw in our culture and government. This removes the need to emulate or even compete with the US. And that would tend to support the kind of government elitism that exists in the EU today.

One reason why socialism will be kept out of the US for at least several more generations, when compared to other countries, is the peculiar nature of the US legal system. US citizens use the legal system to express their contempt for elitism, even if they stand to lose. As Obama challenges right guaranteed in the consitution, as I believe he has done already, politics and socialism will not be enough to quash opposition. I believe that US individuals can choose to be quite militant when it comes to the issue of their own interpretation of the law, whether or not their definition of the law conforms to congress’ definition.

what I see in this post is very different from what others see. Hanson is not writing words to describe experiences or events or even positions, although he is pretending to. Hanson is furthering the goal “Obama must fail” and he is constructing verbal images to achieve that goal. Any factual details that furthers the goal are organized achieve that purpose. Important facts that might detract from the goal are tossed aside no matter. Notice the absence of concrete details, no reference is every brought down to actual fact. He strings together impressions and insults to get to the desired imagery.

What I love about capitalism is that it is a natural system. This means that its rules apply whether you want them to or not. So you have people playing nice-nice for the government but turning into greedy capitalists when the government is not looking.

Years ago, I was a computer geek/instructor, and I spent a lot of time in Sweden. My students commiserated with me about the fact I had to buy my own health care insurance, and how good things were in socialist Sweden, etc., etc. As a young idiot, I marveled at the wonders of all things socialist.

But one day, an old man in the country quietly told me this: “In a country where no one can fail, also no one can succeed.”

People are more angry than I’ve ever seen them, they do not want, do not trust the government to make us into Euro-lite. These so called elites like Obama so enthralled with the european model, are on crack if they think we share their adoration of excolonialists who now dare lecture us about human rights?

The guys who drew up the borders that are the cause of endless wars?

The guys who radicalized Africa and left it in decades of ruin.

The ones who fund arab extremists, and bash Israel for the sin of wanting to live.

The folks who exported marxism, fascism that led to a hundred million dead in a century.

But the American left is so blind in love with euro socialism they can’t see it’s flaws.

Why just once can’t a leftwing politician take an American original idea,.. why must it always be a borrowed agenda from a leftwing state?

Can’t they ever be original?

ever?

If you threw out marx, the entirety of leftist thought would shrivel up and blow away.

just one original thought guys, on your own without sugardaddy europe to hand you a crib note.

I grew up in the “Thousand Year Reich” so I know from firsthand experience what (National) Socialism is – and what it led to. I came to the USA after WWII because it offered far more personal freedom than my native Germany did. It still does.
During the last 50 years since I arrived I have observed that the US crept toward socialism. Obama now wants to speed it up at all costs.
However, I believe the USA will not become like Europe in the near future. Why? Most Europeans for centuries have been conditioned to OBEY the state and its bureaucrats. Contrast that to the immigrants who came and built the USA. By and large they wanted FREEDOM to live their lives as they wanted with minimum government interference. That’s what I think is the BIG difference that hopefully will save us from Obama’s vision. By the way – Hitler spelled out in “Mein Kampf” what he wanted to do but very few people paid attention to it. Obama likewise spelled out his dreams and now he is determined to get his way.

I would add one more thing: rampant racist attitudes. (I know generalizations are at best only generally true.) I have heard numerous Europeans (educated, professional people) say things about racial or ethnic minorities that would never be said over here — not said, and not thought. They are generally exquisitely attuned to ethnic and class differences, and love to tell Americans how they live in a superior system. They protest much too much.

Interesting comments but after the first sentence of: “A few Selected Comments”: Nothing made any sense.

Are you sure you know what the relative “numbers” are with respect to America and Europe on any metric or measurement you may “select to comment on”? Would you like to try again? America is all about second chances.

You may not want to use for comment your “handle” of gdp. Then again go for it but try to make sense the next time around. Or maybe you were trying to just give us a summary of what you “read” in the The Economist. Somehow the translation got lost.

I thought the The Economist was published in English. Maybe I was wrong. If you are French I understand. English and the Economy are Greek to the French.

Don’t worry! Your comments can be weighted and then appreciated. Now in America affirmative action can be helpful to anybody.—we have an African American POTUS and are beyond race and discrimination in all things.

Americans are however still busy people, even with BHO putting the European skids on, and after the first few words if nothing is happening into the trash it goes.

Also next time be original, or if you can understand what you are writing or copying it comes out much better.

Oh! I almost forgot, Most Americans can deal with ignorance it’s the “snooty” BS that gets to us, you idiot.

Kudos to Victor Davis Hanson! As a Spaniard who left the country almost 9 years ago to search for a better future in the States, now in the process of applying for US citizenship I second every single thing that I read here for both Spain and France, the two countries I know best.

I have had several discussion with one of my good friends here in the Bay Area, a German who often projects his “Europe is better” mantra. Once I told him that if he thought Europe was so much better, he should give up his 6 figure salary in high tech and go back to the socialist paradise. He wisely decided to stay in the US and, at least with me, he doesn’t throw any more BS.

A very thoughtful analysis of the road on and the road to socialism. By nature, collective systems are always a mechanism for demonizing each other, low flung incrimination, a disincentive work life, and a flattened fighting spirit. No thanks!!!!!
-Bruce Arlen

Alas, Poor Urich, we knew him well – My grandparents left Austria-Hungary (later Czechoslovakia) for the freedom to be… not only to succeed, but simply to BE. At the age of 91, Grandfather could still recite (and understand) the Preamble to the US COnstitution & the entire Bill of Rights – I’m ashamed to say I cannot.

Kruschev was right – he warned that the Soviets wouldn’t have to invade us – we would rot from within. I loathe that statement, but fear he was correct, all the the aid of an UNDOCUMENTED ALIEN who REFUSES to authenticate his citizenship; a citizenship EARNED by my grandparents, to seek their equality.

But, it is as it was written – “some animals are more equal than others”

“you and your ilk need to be excised and sent on to the incinerator. ”

What a coincidence, you are a prime candidate . . .

37. ~Paules:

“You miss the point as usual. Yes, apartment living is the norm in a more urbanized society.”

You missed MY point: Europe’s population stands at 830 million, USA pop. is 305 million. The square mileage of both areas is very similar. So, you have to cram 2.7 times more people in the same area.

“If you are a merchant, it’s more profitable to stock your 10×10 shop with expensive merchandise for the super wealthy than to cater to the backpacking crowd.”

The way you put it makes more sense. The way the professor writes gives a different interpretation.

“Vivo, if you really want socialism, I suggest you move to Amsterdam.”

I don’t know where you the idea I fully support Socialism. We already have Medicare, churches practice socialism, public transportation is a form of socialism, the military function as a socialist society. The USA is such an open society that different philosophies can be applied to different segments of our life.

41. A Ruckus of Dogs:

“Thank you for putting it into perspective for this group.”

You are welcome, you shouldn’t live with just one perspective.

“Some societies do not smile as easily in public as Americans.”

I have yet to meet a smiling German, Ukranian, Russian, French or Swiss.

On the other hand, lots of smiles from Japanese, Latinos, Chinese or Africans.
It has NOTHING to do with Socialism. Conservatives have found a way to label things and make them sound bad. Their vocabulary is like a form of Ebonics or Yiddish.

Please, do not extrapolate the country of Greece (and Italy) to be like the whole EU. Those two are the most extreme disfunctional examples that you are using to support your thoughts on why socialism is unfair. Europe is extremely diverse in thought, lifestyle, people. Why dont you talk about Sweden, and how they practice a very egaliterian, dynamic, fair system of government (high taxes, yes, but excellent value for money). Or mention how Slovenia and Slovakia (and other E Europe countries) have managed succesfully to move beyond authoriarian communist countries and embrace capitalism.

the idea is that the writter has accused Europe’s government of wasting money on bureucrats. My responce is that likewise the States are channelling funds into schemes that are grossly ineffective for their cost.

to Jack Marcotte:

Some people can not always understand, they then say that the other makes no sense…. It would be nice if these people could articulate an argument with cohesion and coherance. It would also be nicer if these people actually did some reading around- which with the internet has become quite easy- to find that what I claim can be varified in terms of numbers. Why don’t you start with wikipedia and its links? Insteady they opt to accuse others of “snooty BS” and call people names… I just wonder why.

“copying”: Are you accusing me of plagiarism?
My reference to The Economist is about the characterisation of the Greek government not my argumentation. What I wrote is based on reading around from a variety of sources and what has come to be seen as commonplace among anyone remotely intelligent.

As you said my comments can be “weighed and then appreciated”, in fact Michel has already made reference to one of my points considering it valid. What is anybody going to pick up on from your contribution? Nothing probably.

To sum up: there is a nice greek phrase for cases whre one cannot even begin explaining, afta kseris,afta les (that’s what you know, that’s what you say).

First time visiting your blog. You really hit the mark on this one, it mirrors my experiences in Europe as well. Amazing more people don’t understand the path we’re being led down. Keep up the good posts and I’ll definitely visit again.

Average size of a new house built in the US:
2629 sq ft. (Q2, 2008)
Total housing, as of 2000:
Single family detached: 60.3%
Single family, attached: 5.6%
Multifamily: 28.4%
Mobile homes: 7.6%
Other: 0.2%

Average size of a new house in UK:
968 sq ft (2006)
Detached: 21%
Semi-detached/Terraced (duplex or row house–same as “attached” in US above): 59%
Flat/maisonette: 15%
Other: 4%

>uh, not really, take the rates for UK, France, Germany, Luxemburg (the highest in world wilde), Belgian, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, Norvege, SWede, Danemark… people, for the average, get higher incomes than in US’, of course not comparable with eastern EU countries, and mediterranean EU countries, where the average paid hour is 2 times to half or a third lower than in the earliest EU members’

Compare what they can buy, on average, to what we can buy. Relying on exchange rate without cost of living is meaningless–especially when you’re looking at contrived lists created by agents eager to forward socialist policies.

I’ve lived in Germany for 22 years as an American. What Mr. Hanson says is true to a greater or lesser degree in all of Europe. Some observations. Southern Europe is generally seen as dysfunctional by Northern Europe. Life in Northern Europe is generally better than in the south in material terms and in terms of local administration. Imagine Mexico versus Toronto.

There are regional differences within Germany too. Germany still has a lot of entrepreneurs, although this is dying, it is still vibrant. Mostly, they are tradesmen. My neighbor built his own house, for instance. This is common in Germany. People here can have a high standard of living if they want to. Health care here is decent, but also has a strong private insurance element. Old people are not sent off to die. I know a man who recently passed away at 83 and I think they went the extra mile or two to save him. Seniors here in general are in good health and it is common to see them riding bicycles to get around. However, what I see socialism doing, is killing the drive to succeed and improve oneself economically. The ideal is to get a good, secure job, preferably near home, and plant deep roots and go on vacation twice a year. Kids are optional. That to me is the real crisis in Europe, the slow demographic suicide it is commiting. It is the result of a risk averse society that lacks a future perspective. There is little need to plan for the future because life is mapped out for you more or less. That is not what sustains a world class economy and most of Europe and even Germany is anaemic that way. That said, the quality of life here in Germany is high. Among Germany’s strengths are a well educated and industrious population, an emphasis on trades, and a legal environment that is under control. People have more balance between leisure time and work. Germans at least, are not lazy, rather they are structured in how they divide up work and time off. Time off is often spent productively. My neighbors all chop wood or work on their homes. Its popular to heat with Franklin stoves again in the countryside, where I live, but everyone has oil or natural gas heat as well. Wood stoves are not allowed in cities either. If they are tradesmen, they do off the books side work. Tax avoidance is a national survival skill here and is a main reason to start a business.

Houses here are aesthetically nice, comfortable, and decent sized, mine is 3100 sf. Houses are well built, made of concrete block with terra cotta tile roofs. Germany is also trending towards more American style capitalism in the long run. They never killed their entrepreneurial class, rather co-opted it when building their post war economy. There is less class envy here than elsewhere in Europe for that reason perhaps. I think government here is still too large and intrusive; there is too much business regulation for mid sized manufacturing, for instance, but every day things like paying property taxes, which are very low here BTW, are very easy to resolve. The taxes they pay we don’t but probably soon will are a VAT and very high fuel taxes. Our income taxes with all of the state and local taxes and social security already meet European levels. Germans also have a number of other social service plans they must pay into, which ultimately eat up 55 to 60% of most people’s gross pay.

They really have mercantilism here. The politicians are in bed with the big companies and all sit on several corporate boards or accept consultation fees. The companies then benefit from all the industrial policy that results. Socialism entrenches the haves and buys off the have nots while also denying them the necessary incentives to leave their situation. That is why there is a dearth of new companies to replace the last centuries’ industries. The economy exports a lot, so money flows into it, but it has too little internal growth. We are importing from Germany and sending our dollars over there and sustaining the world at our own expense.Another thing, remember that Europe is 500 million people in an area the size of the north east quarter or perhaps third of the US. Places like France and Germany have great inftrastructure because they have a far denser tax base. Europe is cautious and in the poorer regions, people spend their time trying to maneuver to a better producing government teat. America is indeed unique. That can do spirit is what will die if we go down this route Obama wants to take us. We can do better than Europe, and in many ways do. We need to produce more, import less and export more. We need better K-12 education, smart, common and portable benefits for our workers, more emphasis on trades, more emphasis on being productive. We need to make sensible compromises between the environment and industry and avoid the hyperbole that an over lawyered nation has come to produce. What America really needs is smart government that is small yet effective and lets the creative spirit of our people flourish.

Mediocrity I believe is a subjective qualification. But if you can give me a standard for quantification of quality that you find acceptable, I can tell you in what ways Denmark is mediocre. Mediocrity is mostly defined by what you are NOT and incidentally the NLP technique of chunking down by asking questions using “in what ways” and “how” to go from general to specific is invented by (and what a shock that is to discover) 2 Americans and NOT anybody from mediocre Europe.

I understand and agree with your comments at one level, especially after having almost died while being “treated” in Thessaloniki, but I think it’s important to note that Europe is a concept while the United States are a country.

Greece and Greeks are generally unhappy. That isn’t because of their socialistic system. They were unhappy with a King, they were unhappy with a sultan. They are unhappy because Greece is poor. And without the system they have, it would be worse.

It is one thing to say that there are countries in Europe where people aren’t happy. Italy, Greece, Southern France. This is true, the levels of documentable dissatisfaction there aren’t arguable. Whether they can be attributed to the social structure of their welfare states, is however very arguable.

Because Denmark is also in Europe and they are thrilled, in a quiet Danish way. So are the Norwegians and the Swiss and the Swedes. Europe should be dealt with on a state level, then the comparisons make sense. But that isn’t as powerful. But, there is more power in an accurate comparison, then in an over hyped and ultimately inaccurate one.

I’ve read your article concerning your findings during your 16 day’s tour of Europe.
As a european (I’m Belgian) you will not be suprised that I do not agree with your observations and/or conclusions. Granted, I am somewhat biased, but everybody inevetably is (and so are you offcourse)

What I particulary find disturbing is the practice of ‘generalizing’, a practice that is all to common when people make individual observations and draw conclusions from it, that they then apply to a whole society or culture, just to make a point.

I had the occasion to work for different international companies (Japanse, European and US based) and have travelled alot, many times to the US. Frankly speaking, when I travel to rural USA and visit small towns or certain suburbs in Major US cities, take a snaphot of what I see and hear there, and then generalize this as being representative for the USA, it’s not a pretty picture.

I’m not sure if your travels included the northern part of europe where middle-class europeans have nice homes like the in the US, 2 or more cars (high quality cars – BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, Audi), and so one..
Not because they came from a rich family, but because they worked themselves up, were able to study at a private college because it’s affordable unlike in the US, and found a good paying job.

In Europe, it’s actually possible to have only 1 minimum-wage job and live reasonably. This is not the case in the US, where some people need to work 2 or more jobs because of the abonimable mimimum wages, while CEO’s make obscene amount of money. That is also part of the ‘American Dream’ that is not so glamorous and doesn’t come into the spotlights too often.

In Europe, roads and bridges are in excellent condition, education and quality health-care (WHO evaluation) is available and affordable for everybody, and the majority of people are happy. International studies have demonstrated clearly that ‘quality of life’ everything considered is one of the highest in Western Europe.

Yes we do pay higher taxes and we get more in return from the goverment in the form of services, because we trust our goverments to do this in a fair way (after all we elected them. For some reason that escapes me, this equates for some Americans to ‘socialism’ which I find bizarre since we have a free market economy like the US. Actually our currency is much stronger than the US dollar, European companies are outperforming and taking over US companies, the list goes on…

Do we have issues and problems, offcourse we do, like any society, but many Europeans and a big part of the world, are frankly speaking fed-up with the attitude of a certain branch of the political spectrum in the US, that still believes in ‘American exceptionalism’ and says things like ‘ we are the best and greatest society the world have ever seen’. There have been many examples in our history of societies or cultures who for some reason or another believed they were better than others. We all know what happened to them. One thing is for sure : nothing lasts forever and history has the tendency to repeat itself.

I am an American living in Germany, and my wife is German. I have traveled around Europe quite a bit. I can confirm that this article is correct. Because I have private insurance, I am treated more quickly and with better care at hospitals and clinics than my wife, who has the “Government” insurance, which costs her three times as much as my private insurance. I’m telling you, folks, that socialism doesn’t work. It is a idealistic concept devised by naive people who want to feel good about taking care of everyone. It is a sham.

I am an American who has been living in Germany for over ten years now. It made me chuckle when I read your “European” observations. Although many of them may be true when singled out, they certainly don’t add up to the negative picture you point out. Every European country has it’s oddities and you know about these when you live in Europe.

I’d like to give you some insight into what I like about Germany.

The first is public health care. It’s affordable, you hardly have any additional costs when something serious strikes and nobody can deny you payment because of a loophole in the contract. Knowing that you can’t be hit with a big bill while lieing in a hospital is very reassuring.

Second, there are no guns on the street. You do feel a lot safer when you can be pretty sure that the guy whose temper is flaring or who is acting strange, doesn’t have a gun. Americans who have visited me here don’t seem to miss their guns. They also have the feeling that they don’t need them here. My last visitor from Albuquerque told me about three senseless shootings he had witnessed in the two months preceding his visit in his neighborhood alone – like a motorcyclist being shot from a car because he passed the car on the right at a red light. We took a short cut through some dark alleys in a city of 500.000 inhabitants and my American friend fearfully kept screening the dark corners for somebody who might be lurking there. But indeed, in Germany you can walk through dark alleys in the middle of the night and nothing happens.

In the morning I go to the baker accross the street, who actually bakes his bread himself every morning, to get a fresh loaf. Then I go up the street to buy fresh sausage and fresh milk. Fresh products are so near, you don’t have to drive for half an hour to the outskirts of town to a shopping mall if you want something (this, btw is the reason Walmart fell flat on its face when it tried to establish business in Germany). Also it’s not as likely that the foods you eat are tainted with some product from an agribusiness giant.

And another pleasant thing. Here in Germany I have 30 days of paid vacation. And Bavaria, where I live, has 13 holidays a year, which is the second highest number of holidays of any place in the world. A lot of free time for your family or to visit those absolutely relaxing beer gardens. Believe me, Victor, even you would love doing that.

I, too, just returned from a 15-day jaunt in the UK where I noticed that same pandering to an imbecilic mentality that is beginning to seep in here in the US.

The sign above all lavatory sinks in the chain of retail stores called Primark in Wales and Scotland read:

“Now wash your hands.”
Even my 15-year-old daughter felt nannitized.

In a variety of hotels I observed the same yellow sticker in bathrooms near bathtubs: “Warning: Hot Water!”

BBC 1′s morning news show for several days in succession declared to the British public that two banks there,
“which we, the British people, own 40 percent of…” were about to go under, despite the large BAILOUT they had received. I almost fell off my bed laughing.
Apparently the UK media believe their viewers are idiots
too.

When we were in Italy two years ago, I noticed all the apartments. I asked our tour guide about this. He remarked that about 80% of the population lived in apartments. He was very rueful and voluntarily commented that Americans didn’t know how good they had it. I couldn’t help think of our lovely America with so many lawns and families in single family homes. We are so blessed. I hope we can hang on.

The “tracking” that European children suffer breaks my heart. As a teacher, I know that children have all kinds of learning styles and timing: some will bloom early, others late.

I was a late bloomer: an average elementary student, good high school student, stellar college scholar. To think that I would have missed my chance, that at age 12 my course would have been set out for me, shocked me. I knew that students in Europe were “tracked”; I didn’t know it was so entrenched.

The thought of my daughter, who is a learner like me, brought me to tears. She is ten. She would already be severely limited in her life choices.

This is why I fight for freedom, bringing on myself all kinds of slurs from the highest office in the land. I am called Nazi, “evil-monger”, fearmongerer, Rethuglican, and other names I won’t repeat here. But it is worth that and more to fight for a FREE future for my children.

Before this is over, I think one or more states will secede. Wherever it is, there I shall go.

I work in Italy and can confirm this paints a true picture of that country. At least as many professionals want to leave to come to Britain as they do in Russia, which was quite a shock to realise. The problem is that beauraucracy creates a sclerotic system where it is so difficult to find a position that once you do, you cling on for dear life – forget promotion or improving something, the point is to stay there – and attempt to get your family and friends into the best positions you can to secure your own position and something for your family. It is an absolute nightmare.

Oh dear. As a Brit who admires the USA and has become a regular visitor, this healthcare debate has shown up some weird and xenophobic behaviour on the other side of the pond. Why the focus on Greece? You completley ignore the Germans, Dutch and Swedes. This is a bit like going to the US and ignoring Minnesota and Massachusetts and focussing on New Orleans or Detroit. Europe has lots of problems, for sure, but such a loaded article is like basing one’s views of the whole of US society and politics from watching on David Simon’s The Wire series. Oh, and our cars are relatively small, but much more varied and better to drive than many of the clunking beasts that come out of General Motors! Mercedes, BMW and Audi seem pretty popular in the US these days.

In a sense, I have more hope for a return to our traditional values of free markets and small government than I’ve had in years. The frog boilers have made the mistake of turning the heat TOO high, and the frogs are jumping out of the pot.

In my job, I have to interface with the employees in our European division. They are very nice people and for the most part competent in their jobs, but they do not innovate, getting them to think out of the box is like pulling teeth and in these tough times where the US employees are knuckling down and working extra, they continue to leave at 5PM like a whistle blew and have been taking their three weeks’ vacation all at once.

These are people who live in a former Eastern Bloc country. You would think they would be happy to be out from under communism and would snap to the other end of the spectrum but no, they’ve built a comfy, cozy little nanny-state for themselves and they are demonstrating the behavior that affects everyone who is coddled: Complacency.

Interesting reading, if only for an insight into the mindset and preconceptions of a certain element of the American public. However it is clearly the work of someone who has a set idea of how the world should be, is and will be and judiciously ignores anything which might disturb that comfortable view.
A few points:
“After concluding another 16 days in Europe. I am again reminded how different their form of socialism is, and yet how closely it resembles the model that Obama seeks for America. The vast majority of citizens lives in apartments, even in smaller towns and villages.”
No, only in a handful of the 27 EU countries does a majority of the citizens live in apartments, and only in one or two can that be described as ‘the vast majority’

In any case this has nothing to do with Capitalism or socialism, apartment dwelling is much more common in low tax, small government Switzerland than it is in proudly socialistic Sweden and Denmark, the EU country with the highest proportion of detached housing is ex-communist Slovenia. It is more a function of urbanity vs rural dwelling, attitudes to private space, climate etc. Just as apartments in Miami and NYC are more than in rural Nebraska.
“Cars are tiny”
No, US cars are huge!! European cars are a similar size to Japanese, Korean, Brazilian, South African, Australian vehicles etc, it’s the US which is unusual in its appetite for massive vehicles, the rest of the world has little appetite for them. is this not anyway more to do with narrower streets and parking bays in old cities than socialism? Or are the Hong Kongers who pay 10% income tax and drive similar sized vehicles to Europeans (if they are one of the minority who doesn’t just use public transprt) also victims of the communist car shrinkers?
“Prices are higher than in the states; income is lower (The government taxes you to pay for things like “free” college, so you won’t have much to spend on antisocial things like your Wal-Mart plastic Christmas Tree or your second K-Mart plasma TV.)”
Prices are often higher, sometimes lower, but yes, the dollar is pretty weak vs the Euro at the moment. Income in some European countries is higher than the US average, in most it is lower. This has been the case though for more than a century, long before the dreaded socialism ever appeared in European government policies. Were Greek wages under the right-wing dictatorship of the 1960s higher than in the US at the time? I very much doubt it. Europe as a whole is catching up with the US on this score though, the gap in material living standards between say Athens and Philadelphia in the 1920s or 1940s was much greater than it is now (and most Europeans are less indebted to boot!).
“often leading to a hedonism of few children, late and long meals, and disco hours until the early morning. The number of Gucci like stores selling overpriced label junk like 200 Euro eye-glass frames and 1000 Euro leather bags to socialists is quite amazing.”
Eating late meals and going to discos, how disgusting, lol. I agree that spending money on 1000 Euro leather bags is a waste, I’d also suggest that spending it on a 10 ton Hummer to do the grocery shopping or 4000 sqft house for three people is an equal waste but that’s individual choice. I don’t quite understand the distinction between what you consider to be ‘legitimate and praiseworthy’ conspicuous consumption in the US showing the heroic capitalist individualism of Americans and what you seem to want to portray as ‘illegitimate and shameful’ conspicuous consumption in Europe being a clear sign of socialist malaise. A case of projecting your own preferences as a universally ‘correct’ model to be followed?
“Multiple political parties flourish, all with passionate single agenda constituents. Graffiti is not gang related, but mostly political and nonsensical. Media is divided by politics, a leftwing paper, a rightwing magazine.”
Not all parties by any means are single-issue, all electoral systems have their flaws but having only two ‘broad church’ parties (with huge financial barriers to anybody wanting to challenge their duopoly) is only one step removed from the one ‘broad church’ party that China has is it not? Sorry, but give me the wider choice of European politics any day.
“Unions control almost all government services. And yet class is firmly entrenched and aristocratic snobbery more pronounced.”
Again it depends where you are, Europe is not one monolithic entity. In France only 5% of the workforce is unionised for example. Class too is not the same continent wide, just as the aristocratic families of New England and Texan oil dynasties are not that relevant in Seattle.
“Among upper-class Greeks, one is constantly reminded that their grandfather, their cousin, or mother-in-law was this minister once, or that writer years ago, or today a famous diplomat—anything to focus one’s attention beyond the possession of the normal flat in the normal apartment building and the normal tiny Fiat and the normal public education.”
I’m not really qualified to talk about the Greek upper classes as I don’t know any but in terms of the ‘normal’ flat and ‘normal’ car, is it really uniquely European that rich people live in apartments, I notice many rich New Yorkers living in tall apartment buildings, that is just a question of personal taste, not a sign of socialist oppression. There are very rich people in London and Hong Kong who live in apartments and take public transport when they easily choose a big house in the countryside and a big car. I’m sure rich Greeks could afford a large house in the middle of nowhere like rich Texans if that was what they wanted.
“When I talk to well-off Italians and Greeks who have substantial homes by the sea not available to most others, one of three realities leak out: one, they have family money made decades ago by their ancestors that includes ancestral estates permissible before the period of supposed mandated equality of result. In other words, theirs got theirs and then helped make laws so no one else could.”
This is specific to these countries, not something that can be extrapolated to the whole continent.
“Or, two, people simply cheat on taxes all the time. If you buy something, the offer comes to pay in cash. A Greek explained to me his government job is his official tax-paying day job; the expertise necessary for it is what he farms out at night and on weekends for cash that goes for a second home, a larger car, a vacation abroad.”
Again, not something which applies to the whole of Europe, much of which is far less corrupt than the politicians of Illinois or the rabbis of New Jersey.
“Or, three, the technocrats who run these vast welfare states are not only well paid, but more importantly are able to garner cars, travel, and plush apartments as tax-free job related perks (cf. the current scandal in London). If being a “venture capitalist” is what wannabe Harvard kids in their 20s sought in the 1990s, being a bigwig Minister, with neo-classical office, state Mercedes, and official residence is the perennial European equivalent.”

Again, the situation varies enormously, but the numbers involved in these very top level jobs are a tiny proportion of the workforce, not much different to the self-replicating Corporate and Political elite in the US and elsewhere. I certainly don’t recognise the picture of many young people dreaming of being welfare dept bigwigs.
“My point? The more Europe professes to be egalitarian, the more cynical and conniving the people have become—almost as if the human craving for one’s own property and to make one one’s destiny cannot be denied by the state, but by needs will be channeled into what the state mandates as anti-social for most, but quietly a perk for a few.”
Again it’s not something that I recognise from most of Europe, there may be a grain of truth when it comes to very high level corporate and public leaders, but is it really any different in the US? It’s not as if Europeans are not allowed to buy plasma screen TVs and big cars if they want to, if they can afford 1000 Euro for a handbag, i’m sure they are not that financially oppressed.
“I’ve been reading a lot of commentary in Italian and Greek newspapers these last three weeks and talking to Italians, Greeks, and Turks during two long European lecture tours. Socialism surely does not make one happier, or content knowing that the resulting society is somehow more humane or caring. Instead each faction is constantly on the verge of striking against the public good.”
Many European countries have rates of strikes lower than the US, the picture you paint is a localised one at best. A recent study found Danes to be the happiest people on the planet, Europe has its faults but you can judge by the vast reduction in the numbers of people making the permanent trip westwards across the Atlantic compared to a century ago (at a time when it has never been easier to make the move) that this continent is a much better place to live than it was then.
“I would assume that if there weren’t a US-led NATO, some sort of shooting war would quickly break out over immigrants, Aegean air space, or Cyprus. To suggest that privately to Greeks is to earn a grudging nod; to do so publicly is to get a fiery denunciation and yet another tutorial about the 1967 coup, and the Henry Kissinger intrigue in Cyprus, as prequel to Iraq and Bush.”
You may assume that, and it’s probably true that if the US didn’t spend so much on defense and pulled out of Europe, Europe would probably spend more (which might benefit us both), but you surely cannot deny that the US has meddled many times in foreign countries with its own interests more in mind than genuine altruism, although I’m sure this paternalism has also played a part whether misguided or not.
“I have ended up over the last 36 years in a number of socialist hospitals: E-coli poisoning in Athens from tainted strawberries; a cut tendon on my index finger from a barbed wire fence in Sparta (with reaction to live tetanus vaccination); a severed ureter due to an impacted staghorn calculus kidney stone from dehydration of excavating at Corinth; a light case of malaria at Karnak, Egypt; an out of control, strep throat that turned into something more in Izmir, Turkey; a ruptured appendix, surgery, and peritonitis in Tripolis, Libya, and so on.
In each case, the care was terrible.”
Greece isn’t exactly a great example of ‘socialised’ medicine, the public/private split in expenditure is much more similar to the US than to most other European countries. and comparing Egypt or Turkey (especially many years ago) to the US is like comparing the ‘socialised’ system in Sweden to the 100% private, no government involvement system in Somalia and drawing wider conclusions. If a country has significantly fewer resources, it will have worse hospitals, whether public or private. Even so, I notice that (happily) you are still with us!

“Dr. Hanson, since I live in Europe, on behalf of the Europeans: Goodbye, and dont come back. Our sns and daughters are dying in AFghanistan too. We have plenty of fine youths.”

Hit a nerve, did he? Which sons and daughters would that be? You should be able to name them considering your “contribution” has been oh so honorable in terms of numbers. Makes for good PR on the world stage, but the truth is widely known about all that EU participation, or lack thereof, even if you don’t own up to it.

I live in Europe too and Dr. Hanson sums it all up pretty well. I dying society if there ever was one. No one giving much thought to the future and everyone more concerned with their state entitlements than their own neighbor (if you ever make contact with them).

to Mike, CO (#93): Immigration in Europe will be an increasingly important phenomenom because countries in the EU have significantly lower birth rates than the US and other cuntries.

Know why? Because the European liberal establishment, for decades, has been promoting a culture of white guilt and shame upon native whites in all European countries, encouraging them not to contribute to Caucasian population growth in Europe. Germany has the highest number of native (white) Germans not contributing to the German population growth and instead allowing the Turkish-Muslim population, via immigration, to grow unchecked. By 2050, the Turkish-Muslim population may replace the white German people as the majority of Germany. Other European countries are simply catching up.

All because of the liberal establishment promoting a culture of white guilt and shame via deception and disinformation.

“I couldn’t help think of our lovely America with so many lawns and families in single family homes. We are so blessed.”

lol, excuse me while I vomit!! Your lovely America where people in trailer parks addicted to crystal meth kill each other at three times the rate of us poor apartment dwelling europeans. Maybe your tour guide was just sucking up to you and telling you what you want to hear for an extra tip, it’s the American way!!

Give me a nice townhouse or apartment in a vibrant interesting urban area any day over a cookie-cutter suburban blandobox miles from any facilities even if it is bigger.

“Compare what they can buy, on average, to what we can buy. Relying on exchange rate without cost of living is meaningless–especially when you’re looking at contrived lists created by agents eager to forward socialist policies.”

Europeans buy a bit less (we still buy plenty enough) but at least we don’t have such enormous debts (on average) to show for it.

“My son (26 years old) and his wife are missionaries in Austria. He was showing me some photos of a street festival in Vienna on his last trip home a month ago. He pointed out that no one smiles over there, and sure enough, the proof was in the photos. Hundreds of people, and nary a one was smiling! I remarked that, “Maybe they have nothing to smile about,” and my son agreed.”

Seriously though, levels of street-grinning are not an accurate barometer of how good life is, some peoples and cultures just grin more, Cubans for example are always smiling but I wouldn’t attach much weight to it

132 Buckeye Abroad : “I live in Europe too and Dr. Hanson sums it all up pretty well. I dying society if there ever was one. No one giving much thought to the future and everyone more concerned with their state entitlements than their own neighbor (if you ever make contact with them).”

Bold statement, given the fact that out of the ruins of two world wars a European Union has emerged that already surpasses the USA in terms of GDP, and which is quickly expanding, with a currency that is quickly becoming the preferred reserve currency of many worldbanks, and with an economy that is more and more resiliant to the hick-ups of a runaway ultra-capitalist economy in the US.

Re: 88 Marie Claude,
You say “that’s why we (Europeans) are less dependant on the big oil companies, that would wage conflicts upon countries that contest their preheminence (sic)”. Sounds like you are ignorant of the fact that Europeans are MUCH more dependent upon foreign oil from the Mideast than the United States is. You better hope that the U.S. led military effort helps stabilize that troubled region so you can keep your superior non-greedy Euro car on the road.

Europe is exhausted. After several hundred years of colonialism, monarchy, communism, fascism, nazism, countless horrendous wars, etc. After WWII they opted for peace and quiet…regardless of the cost. They’re spiritually exhausted, and the social welfare state has in fact avoided war and hideous ideologiies…at the expanse of creating a deadened, numb, and utterly dependent (on the nanny state) populace.

For europe, socialism is the best solution. IMO they’re emotionally and spiritually dead and their socialism is economically unsustainable over the long haul. But, who cares? Not me.

On the fortieth anniversary of the largest mudbath in history (Woodstock), we are beginning to see the other culture so long disregarded by the media elite. The Americans who did not matriculate at our 60′s era universities are beginning to push back. These are the people who drove the John Deeres, punched holes in the ground for oil, bagged groceries, served in the military. In short, the people who made this country run. We are not Nazis. we are not a mob. We do not like what the people in Washington are up to. I’m looking forward to November 2010!!!

I most certainly find the recent articles by Dr Hanson welcome and perceptive. I am saddened by a sense of resignation which seems to appear when he describes his present experiences in the eastern Mediterranean with the glories of its past. The mismanagement of the world in which we live, the governments which increasingly burden its citizens, while at the same time the dishonest prosper, is a signpost for all to read. Would that the United States could show the way to proper leadership, but I fear that it will not. Congressmen and Senators easily fall prey to lobbyists whose only concern is their employer, and the employer’s only concern is self interest. The occupant of the White House increasingly shows himself bent on the course which brought about the situation which now exists in Europe.

“Bold statement, given the fact that out of the ruins of two world wars a European Union has emerged that already surpasses the USA in terms of GDP, and which is quickly expanding, with a currency that is quickly becoming the preferred reserve currency of many worldbanks, and with an economy that is more and more resiliant to the hick-ups of a runaway ultra-capitalist economy in the US.”

Bold but true none the less. Marshall Plan– read up on it. Most of the loans were commuted to grants meaning never paid back. Takeing our capitalist money doesn’t seem to bother Euros and I think we had a slight hand in the whole WW thing, but whatever keeps your “Phonix rising out of the ashes” (bounding over alot of gaps) afloat.

Quickly expanding? Me thinks absorbing more countries into the EU may prop up the house of cards a bit longer, but productivity, increasing debt to support social benefits, household disposable income, long term double digit unemployment (and rising), demographics and real economic growth are not even close to being sustainable to surpass the US in the long run. Well, it was until the current adminstration took over. I noticed the EU financial accounts still haven’t been signed off by independent auditors and the layers of beaucracy from Brussels/Strassbourg continues to smother real economic development. The ECB’s inflexibiliy to lower interest rates does dampen the export market– you know, the stuff you sell to the rest of the world to prop up all that “expansion” but it does make for cheap holidays abroad. Lets wait 10 years and have another look.

Capitalism is the only sustainable economic system that encourages investment and lessens waste of resources (supply/demand) however the market dictates the situation and the price, not the state. Market corrections happen, as they should, but it is better in the long run than state intervention and prolonging a bad economic situation. All sociliast models collapse after a couple of generations or simply remains static in the best of days. Happened in the former soviet republic, SE Asia, ect…and it will happen again as history doesn’t repeat itself, it stutters.

my experience with Europeans, who I’m fortunate to count many as friends, is that they are rightly very proud of their history (perhaps more so outside of the past century) but that they would trade their personal future for an American future.

As a long time Fan of VDH I am rather disappointed at this articles many weaknesses.I live in both England and America and find the extremes in both countries are not to be used in judging the general health of a nation.From my beautiful home in the bay area I can quickly drive to Oakland or Richmond…both areas that Europe would be hard stretched to match in horrors…are they the standard by which America should be judged.In England I live in a 6500 sq foot house. and yet I was born into a poor working class family,meritocracy is still alive and flourishing here.

In my frequent perusal of British newspapers, I have noticed a disturbing anger directed at those who get more than their “fair” share of government largesse–as if everyone is allotted a certain amount and therefore are taking, one from the other–even in small petty matters. Socialism breeds contempt and resentment between citizens, much more than in a free economy. Yep, I can see fatties and smokers and whatever “antisocial” groups being targeted next. Alcoholism seems rampant. Mr. Orwell and Ms. Rand were incredibly perceptive.

“The more Europe professes to be egalitarian, the more cynical and conniving the people have become—almost as if the human craving for one’s own property and to make one one’s destiny cannot be denied by the state, but by needs will be channeled into what the state mandates as anti-social…”

Does this not sound just like exposition by a character in an Ayn Rand novel? The whole piece recreates the feel of one of Rand’s dystopias.

In my view, Ayn Rand’s longevity and intensely loyal following come from her ability to portray and morally justify the instincts of human nature relating to individual liberty, work, and property.

It is not her economic theories that matter, but her utterly uncompromising, stark, even ruthless, insistence on the nobility of living fully these basic human Freedoms without shame, guilt, denial, or elaborate sublimation.

When we see a mass trend of young Europeans reading Ayn Rand’s novels we might reasonably suspect that the days of Socialism may be numbered.

It’s fascinating to see how many people post comments on your writings, Professor. Both pro and con. It reminds me of the line from Howard Stern’s movie, ‘Private Parts’ – Whereas the irate callers/ listen to the program 2-3 times as long as his happy listeners for the same reason – ‘To hear what he’ll say next.’

Marie Claude, I always enjoy your comments though I have to disagree with your assessment of wages, living conditions.

I’ve friends in Paris and Brussels and suffice to say – the Professor nails the shoebox-like living conditions.

As for ‘higher incomes than the U.S.’ comment regarding UK, Germany, Belgium etc., The U.K. is ridiculously expensive and boasts of having the most expensive restaurants in the world!

Everybody in Belgium is stacked upon one another. It reminds me of the apartments surrounding Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Oh, you say this is due to the ‘age’ of the city, country, continent, et al. Though Brussels is SPREAD OUT. The reason these folks live on top of one another is similar to the living conditions in S.F. – people feel safety in numbers. Whereas I feel more safe in non-claustrophobic conditions.

My friends in Paris, as in Brussels are crammed into 2, 3 story buildings, lofts, duplexes, etc., because it’s too expensive to live otherwise.

These folks aren’t young 20-somethings floating in and out of school, aimless. These are 30-something working professionals who have communal-like living conditions (due to 1 kitchen, fridge, etc,.,) who can’t afford to purchase a flat, let alone a house of their own, unless they’d have others move-in to assist with their mortgage.

Off topic, the weather is often miserable in Brussels. Similar to that of Portland..

The buildings, architecture in both areas are spectacular though. Truly.

I won’t go into the animosity between the Belgians and Flemish citizens, or the next to nil practice of religion in both regions. That’s another topic altogether.

No need for me to read up on the marshall plan, I know my history thanks. As far as the involvement of the US is concerned in WWII, however gratefull we remain, this is not relevant in this discussion. (although I notice this is consistently brought up as if you are trying to mouthpiece us Europeans). What is relevant is the complete destruction of our infrastructure and industrial and economic base during that period, and yes we got a helping from the US during a couple of years. I guess US exports als benefited from this. Now in the meantime things have changed, as you know, and it is the rest of the world (including Europe) who is now financing the US (thank you please).
As far as expanding is concerned, more and more countries are eager to join the Europen Union because of the tremendous benefits this brings to their economies and the prospect of joining the monetary union with a strong curreny. Again, the situation is quite different in the US, a Union which is torn apart by internal political feuds (grab your guns !when will Texas leave the Union ?) fueled by extreme runaway media that will spew any nonsens (under the cover of free speach) because it sells.
At the rate you’re going, you currency is quickly getting the status of mickey-mouse money (the kind you get in Disney-world). The moment your currency looses the status of preferred reserve-currency you will be all in big trouble (it is actually happening already – read up on it).
And I could go on, ranting like you do, but this isn’t really civilized is it ?

Let’s all look at our own issues and problems and solve them and keep an eye on global challenges and try to contribute. No need to bash Europe, no need to bash the US. We are two cultures, with many similarities but also big differences, lets respect each other. Is the US better that Europe or vice-versa? Offcourse not, we’re just different.

No need for me to read-up on the Marshall plan, I know my history thank you. As far as the involvement of the US is concerned in WWII (at least starting from 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbour), however gratefull we remain, this is not relevant in these discussions (I notice this is always brought as a means to mouthpiece us Europeans). What is relevant, is the complete destruction of our infrustructure and economic base from which the EU has risen. Yes, we got a helping hand from the US during a couple of years, and in return the US got a huge export market.

Now since apparantly you enjoy bashing Europe, let’s give it a try the other way around, shall we :

(1) The situaton has changed quite a bit since WWII. It is now the rest of the world (including Europe) who is financing the US, isn’t it ? A US who is living largerly above its means, and unfortunately the near-collapse of your whole financial system illustrates this.

(2) Your currency is quickly transforming into ‘Mickey-Mouse’ money (the kind you get in Disney World). When your currency wil stop to be the preserved reserve currency of many world banks, replaced by a basket of currencies with a dominant part for the EURO) you will be all in big trouble.

(3) You’re union is torn apart by internal political feuds, fueled by extreme media that will spew-out any nonsens under the cover of free speach, just because it sells (grab your guns, when will Texas leave the union ??)

(4) Your companies are going bankrupt, loosing competition everywhere (Yes even Belgian companies are taking over US icons) and the last decade has been littered with scandals of US companies and company executives. Runaway capitalism at its best.

(5) Optimum use of resources : companies and company executives making obscene amounts of money while others need to have 2 or 3 dayjobs just to survive with the abominable minimum wages you have ?? – ah yes..it’s all their own fault isn’t it? Sure everybody in your society has the ability to become a self-made man.

I could go on, ranting like this quite a while, but this isn’t quite civiled is it ?
It’s easy for Americans to bash Europe and our economic and social system, just as it is very easy for us to do the same with you. This brings us nowhere. We have many similarities, but also many differences which we should respect. The US is not better that the EU, nor the other way around. We are just different. Let’s focus on solving our own issues first, keep an eye on global challenges and try to contribute.

“Bold but true none the less. Marshall Plan– read up on it. Most of the loans were commuted to grants meaning never paid back.”

Here in Britain we just finished paying back our loans a couple of years ago, the Marshall plan was nice but it only ever represented a couple of % of GDP in a handful of countries for two or three years. The European countries which grew quickest in the 1950s and 60s were Italy and Germany, the two WE countries receiving the least Marshall Plan aid. It’s funny the way that 60 years later Americans still like to use it to take credit for everything Europe has achieved since. EU structural funds given by rich European countries to their poorer neighbours dwarf Marshall Plan aid (yes in real terms) and go on year after year.

Quickly expanding? Me thinks absorbing more countries into the EU may prop up the house of cards a bit longer, but productivity, increasing debt to support social benefits, household disposable income, long term double digit unemployment (and rising), demographics and real economic growth are not even close to being sustainable to surpass the US in the long run.”

Long-term double digit unemployment??? Which planet are you on? Following on from 18 months of rises, EU unemployment is now 9.3%, a little lower than in the US, per capita economic growth and real wages are doing at least as well as the US, the population is growing as fast but then we are already amature, heavily populated continent, I don’t see many people wanting infinite population growth as it would be negative for the standard of life here, Europe is not a frontier town desperately trying to expand.

As for increasing debt, you need to look closer to home, the US consumer is far more indebted than the European consumer and I don’t see many European countries running a budget deficit approaching 12% of GDP this year to add to the parlous state finances of places like California.

“The ECB’s inflexibiliy to lower interest rates does dampen the export market– you know, the stuff you sell to the rest of the world to prop up all that “expansion” but it does make for cheap holidays abroad. Lets wait 10 years and have another look.”

I think that the German, Dutch, Swedish, Swiss etc manufacturing base is looking rather more healthy than Detroit don’t you?

“In England I live in a 6500 sq foot house. and yet I was born into a poor working class family,meritocracy is still alive and flourishing here.”

Unfortunately, meritocracy could be improved here in the UK I think, a recent report showed that parental income and status was a more accurate predictor of an individuals life achievements than in any other OECD countries except Italy and the USA, all of these three countries have room for improvement, the US I would suggest especially needs to look at itself as meritocracy is one of its founding myths.

JohnR : For europe, socialism is the best solution. IMO they’re emotionally and spiritually dead and their socialism is economically unsustainable over the long haul. But, who cares? Not me.

From the sound of it, you’re definition of socialism is just our implementation of capitalism in Europe. It’s a label that is used to demonize and scare people but a label that is completely not covering it’s contents.

Europe has a free-market economy based on capitalist free-market principles but we have checks and balances in place which try to deal with the excesses of a runaway capitalist sytem. We believe our societies have become so complex that it is unwise just to leave everything up to the ‘invisible hand’ of Adam Smith (Scottish eceonomist who lived 2 centuries ago and is considered to be the founder of free-market economic thinking). This includes some redistribution of wealth through a progressive taxation system that is horrifying a certain part of the US political establishment, hence the label ‘socialist’ (nothing works better than fear to convince people of your point).

I have absolutely no idea why you would think we are emotionally or spiritually dead. European culture for countless centuries, and still is the envy of the world (inclusing the US). This statement sir, says more about yourself than us, proud Europeans.

Wendy :The “tracking” that European children suffer breaks my heart. As a teacher, I know that children have all kinds of learning styles and timing: some will bloom early, others late.

Dear Wendy, I’m very happy for you that were able to find your way in life as a ‘late bloomer’. Again, I’m puzzled where you get the idea that students in Europe are being tracked and denied the freedom of choice to follow one education or another.

What makes me (as a european) very sad (it brakes my hart) and sometimes angry, is the way that european realities are distorted in all kinds of articels and media in the US, solely for domestic political purposes. Europe does not deserve this. I’m also afraid that name-calling is not the privilege of your current political elite that is in power (have you noticed how many times ‘socialist’ europe is mentioned in these discussions – or the name calling upwards ?). Capitalism and freedom exists in certain flavours, you like yours, we like ours, just don’t say its strawberry when its vanilla.

gdp/pgd: In defending yourself from my unwarranted personal attack you show good articulation and cohesive thought. It appeared original. Way to go! A big Improvement.

If you could just stick with defending yourself you would be understood much better.

It appears that I however did not make what I said clear to you. So I checked Wikipedia as you suggested for assistance with my own articulation. To my surprise I found so many subjects, so much information it just simply overwhelmed me.

Now I know why you are so scatter brained. I apologize even more for thinking it was your fault. I myself did not know what subject to look into.

I now know why I could not make any sense out of what you were trying to say. I will now read your wonderful Selected Comments through the prism of Wikipedia.

I must thank you for allowing me to discover Wikipedia because I noticed a phenomenal thing about this wondrous source of information and knowledge.

You, or anyone can edit subjects in Wikipedia. The possibilities are endless and if every dipstick got his two cents into Wikipedia the world would sink due to the knowledge and enlightenment that would occur.

But only the select few like you know how easy it is to use the Internet and discover Wikipedia.

America pat your self on the back for inventing the Internet. Sorry Algore. If not for America and the Internet the world would not get exposure to such as gpd/gdp/ppp dispensing information from Wikipedia.

gpd/gdp/ppp you are a fish swimming in American culture, just don’t foul the water with nonsense– syllables.

Marie Claude: The “french defense” for ppp/gdp/pdg. I am glade you decided to jump in this little dust up over nonsense syllables. Sorry I had to use the “french defense” oxymoron comment.

Your comments were very subtle and made your points very well. I to am French from both sides of the family. However we left France in the 1600′s. A good thing for the french, huh?

pjm did an article on a french man, that’s great. Its about time the past is forgotten.

Not off topic at all, no doubt VDH attributes this too to the malign influence of his loosely defined ‘socialism’ as with every other apparently negative feature of Europe, from gucci handbags and apartments to late night dinners and a lack of obsession for monster trucks.

to paul_anulaska :
“Everybody in Belgium is stacked upon one another. It reminds me of the apartments surrounding Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Oh, you say this is due to the ‘age’ of the city, country, continent, et al. Though Brussels is SPREAD OUT. The reason these folks live on top of one another is similar to the living conditions in S.F. – people feel safety in numbers. Whereas I feel more safe in non-claustrophobic conditions”

This is getting very tiresome. Somebody spends time in Brussels, the capital of Europe with more than one million inhabitants, observes that many people who live and work there live in appartment buildings (imagine that !) and concludes that the whole of Belgium ‘lives on top of eachother.
Now lets be serious for one moment, I you have ever ventured oustide the capital and visited Flanders you must have witnessed the living conditions in Belgium outside Brussels which cannot be compared with living conditions in any metropole (Brussels, Paris, New York, HongKong, London,.. wherever) In Belgium we have a saying that every belgian ‘is born with a brick in his/her stomach’, which means that every belgian family works hard to get their own house and garden. A major part of the belgian economy is based on construction companies that build homes for Belgian families.
Your comments are plain and simple desinformation. Don’t believe me : take alook with Google Maps at belgium and zoom-in on any area in Flanders.

“(although I notice this is consistently brought up as if you are trying to mouthpiece us Europeans).”

It needs to be, as most Euro youth have no idea where the financing after WWII came from. I don’t expect gratitude, but the whole “we are xxx hear us roar” and the lecturing of the perceived evils of America vs the world gets to be old hat.

“What is relevant is the complete destruction of our infrastructure and industrial and economic base during that period, and yes we got a helping from the US during a couple of years. I guess US exports als benefited from this.”

It did without a doubt.

“Now in the meantime things have changed, as you know, and it is the rest of the world (including Europe) who is now financing the US (thank you please).”

Mostly the Chinese. I am a big fan of reducing US debt, spending and dependeny of foreign energy resources however I am currently in the minority.

“As far as expanding is concerned, more and more countries are eager to join the Europen Union because of the tremendous benefits this brings to their economies and the prospect of joining the monetary union with a strong curreny.”

They are eager to absorb all that EU funding taken from other European tax payers. Thats it. How long can a few countries, mainly Germany, afford to subsidize the losers? The currency is propped up on false pretenses as future tax revenues is based on a skewed economic growth model. Take a guess how much of the current EU GDP is used to cover social, medical and pension costs? I won’t tap into the amount of corruption the inflate costs.

“Again, the situation is quite different in the US, a Union which is torn apart by internal political feuds (grab your guns !when will Texas leave the Union ?) ..”

Like former Yugoslavia? America is actually several cultures and countries in one. Most state charters allow the state to leave the union and some states are seriously looking at exercising their constitutional rights. Its going to get interesting fast.

“At the rate you’re going, you currency is quickly getting the status of mickey-mouse money (the kind you get in Disney-world).”

Yes, and to correct that would be to face some truths I am not sure the democrat party or a number of Americans are ready to face. It deserves to go down due to the decisions made by policy holders, but I am a capitlist at heart. Decisions and actions have consequences.

I don’t mean to “bash” Europe, but you are promoting its strengths on a false pretense. I am all for the EU being a free trade zone, as it was originally preposed, but what is become is not what I would consider healthy for any soveign European country or sustainable in the long run for a number of reasons. You have been led down a path which there is no concievalbe way forward. Expansion into other markets is fine, but what do you do to maintain a growing econmic model when the politcal one guarantees stagnation? Regarding the US, I hate the idea of America persuing any socialist model, but thats the way the current idiots in DC are trying to stear it. Most of them are lawyers– they are great at rhetoric, but not logical thought or analysis. Bullshitting to win elections is their strength.

“(although I notice this is consistently brought up as if you are trying to mouthpiece us Europeans).”

It needs to be, as most Euro youth have no idea where the financing after WWII came from. I don’t expect gratitude, but the whole “we are xxx hear us roar” and the lecturing of the perceived evils of America vs the world gets to be old hat.

“What is relevant is the complete destruction of our infrastructure and industrial and economic base during that period, and yes we got a helping from the US during a couple of years. I guess US exports als benefited from this.”

It did without a doubt.

“Now in the meantime things have changed, as you know, and it is the rest of the world (including Europe) who is now financing the US (thank you please).”

Mostly the Chinese. I am a big fan of reducing US debt, spending and dependeny of foreign energy resources however I am currently in the minority.

“As far as expanding is concerned, more and more countries are eager to join the Europen Union because of the tremendous benefits this brings to their economies and the prospect of joining the monetary union with a strong curreny.”

They are eager to absorb all that EU funding taken from other European tax payers. Thats it. How long can a few countries, mainly Germany, afford to subsidize the losers? The currency is propped up on false pretenses as future tax revenues is based on a skewed economic growth model. Take a guess how much of the current EU GDP is used to cover social, medical and pension costs? I won’t tap into the amount of corruption the inflate costs.

“Again, the situation is quite different in the US, a Union which is torn apart by internal political feuds (grab your guns !when will Texas leave the Union ?) ..”

Like former Yugoslavia? America is actually several cultures and countries in one. Most state charters allow the state to leave the union and some states are seriously looking at exercising their constitutional rights. Its going to get interesting fast.

“At the rate you’re going, you currency is quickly getting the status of mickey-mouse money (the kind you get in Disney-world).”

Yes, and to correct that would be to face some truths I am not sure the democrat party or a number of Americans are ready to face. It deserves to go down due to the decisions made by policy holders, but I am a capitlist at heart. Decisions and actions have consequences.

I don’t mean to “bash” Europe, but you are promoting its strengths on a false pretense. I am all for the EU being a free trade zone, as it was originally preposed, but what is become is not what I would consider healthy for any soveign European country or sustainable in the long run for a number of reasons. You have been led down a path which there is no concievalbe way forward. Expansion into other markets is fine, but what do you do to maintain a growing econmic model when the politcal one guarantees stagnation? Regarding the US, I hate the idea of America persuing any socialist model, but thats the way the current idiots in DC are trying to stear it. Most of them are lawyers– they are great at rhetoric, but not logical thought or analysis. Bullshitting to win elections is their strength.

…and I’ll tell you another anecdote that seems to relate to your description of how the economies of Socialist countries work in practice…and what that might mean given the basic needs of human nature.

I have friend who traveled extensively by bicycle in Eastern Europe prior to the fall of the Soviet Union.

About 7 years prior to that event, after returning from a bicycle trip to Poland with his wife, he told me an anecdote that he considered emblematic of that whole system and its ultimate fate.

He had a flat tire on his bike, and by chance it was just outside one of the largest factories in Poland, which made bicycles.

He and his wife went in to see if they could get a spare tube or tire, and before long, being Americans traveling by bicycle (hence a novelty), they were talking to the president of the company. They were treated like royalty, got their tire fixed and the spares they needed, and parted with much fanfare.

The telling anecdote came when my friend was in the bathroom standing at the urinal. The president of the company came in to stand next to him and suggest in a whisper that he could change zlotys into dollars at a higher rate than at the Government exchange.

My friend (who has an MS in History) always used that incident as example of how the Communist system’s total control of economics forced people into degrading circumstances even at the highest level–and this guy had one of the better, more prestigious jobs in Poland.

To my friend, such a system could not continue to deny human nature, and since reform was not a real option, it would fail. About seven years later, he was proved right.

…and I’ll tell you another telling story of the old SU. When I lived in Alaska, a Russian tug came into port with officials for some pahlaver or other. A female member of the crew went to the local grocery store to buy some food, and was shocked to see a full meat case. She said it had to be a propaganda trick of some kind. They took her in the back and showed her the butchers at work, and the frozen carcases in the van. She went back out and asked if she could buy something in the case (she had plenty of money). They told her sure, whatever you want. At that point she burst into tears.

Are we really heading towards European Socialism or might they be heading towards us, in historical terms–assuming we can hold the line of common sense against Obama?

for some EU countries it’s true, though I would rather say that they depend more on Russia’s oil and gaz supplies

Now, we don’t have a referred oil or gaz supplier, cuz our Cies buy on “free marckets”, depends on the prices, that’s how they can stock for more than 3 months, this allows them to game with the fluctuant marcket prices, but not repercuted on customers when they make good bargains though

take off southern France, people wouldn’t go from there not further Avignon, Provence in one of the places where live rich persons, uh I think that even a former Bush hypocrit adviser, Wolfowitz, bought a mansion there

“Bold but true none the less. Marshall Plan– read up on it. Most of the loans were commuted to grants meaning never paid back. ”

uh no, all paid back, beside you destroyed our cities, plan Marshall was ment to rebuilt our infrastructures and to make us re-start to buy… especially american goodies and materials, uh I remember that my father’s first “tractor” was Americans made

So plan Marshall dynamised your economy, but you manage to break it down, I wonder why, you didn’t invest in your own work tools but delocate manufacturing to China or idem countries, just for that the actionnaires of the firms get a quicker and a bigger pay-back

“What makes me (as a european) very sad (it brakes my hart) and sometimes angry, is the way that european realities are distorted in all kinds of articels and media in the US, solely for domestic political purposes.”

After a while you just get used to it, it’s standard fare in the ‘debate’ over there.

I learned only this week that Prof. Stephen Hawking would have been murdered by our ‘death panels’ years ago if only he had been English (which of course he IS) and that my neighbour who had a heart bypass last year on the UK NHS was actually ‘banned’ from having that procedure because he is over 59 (how he and the many other over 60s who got it done then despite this ‘BAN’ remains a mystery.)

173. Buckeye abroad :
Understood. On some points we seem not to differ. However, we will always reserve the right to defend our economic and social model that our ancestors paid for in blood, whenever we feel the need to when its attacked from the outside because you feel the need to do so for domestic political purposes. Especially when it’s full of distortions and carefully selected anecdotes that distort macro-economic and other realities.

As i said in my previous post, there is no merit in this. Lets each continue or own ways and see where it brings us.

Very very true. I am Spanish and have lived exactly half my years in the USA and the other here in Europe (France, Germany, some time in the UK).
Often now, I take my children back to the USA to take in the positive aspects of their American culture because I do firmly believe that the US as well as Europe are going down fast. The racism is sustained here all the way up the ladder, the nanny estate way of living is well ingrained and we Oh! so love to responsibilized our governments for all the wrongs in our life. I am fed up with this Europe.

All in all, we live well here in Spain (thanks to my hard work), thou I dearly miss the respect and freedom in society at large that I feel when I go back to the US. Once my children are old enough, we´ll pack and go back to a much better life.

1)Wikipedia was suggested as a good starter. It is far from the only source to be used if one wants to do some non academic research on a topic. You are more than welcome to search other online sources of information which cannot be edited by me or just anyone so there is no danger of every dipstick getting their two cents on it. Let us accept that wikipedia is not to be trusted so pray contribute something substantial and provide some more credulous sources.

2)”To my surprise I found so many subjects, so much information it just simply overwhelmed me.
Now I know why you are so scatter brained. I apologize even more for thinking it was your fault. I myself did not know what subject to look into. ”

Rather than being sarcastic, it would be nice if you got your brain thinking and came up with a few ideas about what this mysterious topic could be. Perhaps GDP/PPP nominal-per capita, try it as key word.

3) “In defending yourself from my unwarranted personal attack you show good articulation and cohesive thought. It appeared original. Way to go! A big Improvement.
If you could just stick with defending yourself you would be understood much better.”

I was coherant and cohesive from the beginning and largely understood. Perhaps I should start attacking you personally if that means getting something more than sarcastic rants.

4)”gpd/gdp/ppp you are a fish swimming in American culture, just don’t foul the water with nonsense– syllables.”
a) My way of life and relation to American culture is none of your business.
b) What are you actually saying? That I’m dependent on the American culture and thus have no right to criticize the States? Give me break!
c) If by American culture you mean MacDonalds, then sorry I’m not swimming in American culture. If by American culture you mean e.g. the use of the internet, sorry again: it has not become part of our world heritage.
d)By analogy: a wish need not swim only in a bowl, it can also swim in the open sea.
e) By the way: a syllable is a phonetic/phonological unit below the minimal meaningful unit. There is hence no such thing as a monsense-syllable.

In the fiftheenth century the world was deemed flat, and you would fall off when you reached the end.
In the nineteenth century, the cows would stop giving milk when the steam-locomotives would pass by.

History is littered with baseless fear-mongering tactics. When your counterpart starts using them , you know you’re on to something.

I agree mostly with the premise of this article, but found this thought giving too much credence to a system that does allow some amount of aid to a person’s well-being. I think it better to state that, Socialism will make the patient care less about their health, or rather add a sense of futility or frustration. I have both been there and sensed it, as well as gather the same sort of introspect from European friends.

Doctors may well blame the patient. Socialism will just provide a way for people and situations to succumb to a consuming malaise.

I agree mostly with the premise of this article, but found this thought giving too much credence to a system that does allow some amount of aid to a person’s well-being. I think it better to state that, Socialism will make the patient care less about their health, or rather add a sense of futility or frustration. I have both been there and sensed it, as well as gather the same sort of introspect from European friends.

Doctors may well blame the patient. Socialism will just provide a way for people and situations to succumb to a consuming malaise.

It all boils down to envy. Conservatives are thankful for what they have and need no barometers for success other than what makes them happy, while liberals are constantly measuring and gauging the Joneses belongings to determine how unfair life has been to themselves, without ever thinking about how good they actually have it. They are nothing if not relativists. Imagine the good fortune to be born in America of all the other countries in which you might otherwise have begun your life. Liberals are so blind with envy that they can’t even see this, although none that I know of have ever decided to leave for “greener pastures”. Friends, this is because there are no greener pastures.

Liberals fancy themselves progressive, yet their destructionist tendencies conflict with this notion at every turn. Conservatives recognize and harness man’s faults for common good, slowly but surely building upon history’s lessons, careful not to destroy the great strides we have made while spreading prosperity to all who are willing to accept it. Liberals will never be satisfied, and will, much like the kindergartner in the sandbox, destroy and attept to rebuild, destroy and attempt to rebuild, on and on, until they either die of old age, bitter and cynical, or finally realize the error of their ways, learn to love life’s challenges and simple pleasures, and enjoy their remaining years happily in the greatest nation on the planet, ever.

It is conservatives that are the progressives, especially when compared to the new Democrats. God bless America (conservatsm).

Nonsense syllables have been used for many years in psychology studies of human memory in the US. There is nothing you can associate with it. It fits you perfectly.

Now what ever country you eat in has finally caught up— they have you!– with the feed bag on. You need some new or updated references or an updated dictionary. Or dump Wikipedia. Get an American dictionary.

For all in this “blog” who think America is the boogeyman of the world. It is completely understandable and very human.

The reasons for the Anti American rants are not positive human traits if you are looking for insight or detail, look in the “deadly sin” column or under lack of individual responsibility–it can probably be found in Wikipedia–somewhere?

Being Anti American, spouting unique facts and figures is an easy position for any Anti American to take, its taken in America all of the time by the parasitic left. It called free speech in America. It is done by those who are looking for someone to take care of them and be responsible for them to protect them.

It’s like having kids that never grow up. Guess what? their reasons for being Anti American are very much like yours. They tend to be intellectual BS underwritten by Utopian armchair thinking with a selective use of “facts”.

They tend to be whiners and sneaky and sometimes vicious but only if they cannot be recognized or identified. They will burn your house down if you are not there– To make their point. They tend to by high on drugs and conclude they are profound thinkers and that anarchy is justified to implement Utopia. AA and PC are their tools to reproduce. Regurgitated communism/socialism puke.

Now that an AA PC POTUS idiot is running around the world apologizing for what America has done it allows foreign idiots to do the same and think that they are justified for many ignorant and selfish piss ant reasons. Incidentally piss-ant may not be a real word but it has meaning in America.

They, especially the communist/socialist left, also think to feed at the American hog troff of BHO printed money.

Think about it, the world wide socialist left now moving to America–to be taken care of. Can a nation of parasites take care of itself or anyone else? It has never happened before and it will turn bloody. It always ends in confiscation via tax or property and America is not there yet. Especially when BHO begins to try to exert force through union thugs in town hall meetings.

BHO’s view of America or the world is no more accurate than yours are. He is an indoctrinated fool. A communist/socialist/AA/PC vacuous fool insulated from real American Values.

BHO represents an America that has emerged due to lack of attention by working Americans who could afford the AA and PC BS but now the parasites have the ability to kill the host. It now can be done by voting and voter fraud due to government funded organizations like Acorn. We also have idiot politicians.

It does not matter what you believe but you can only take the opinions you have because America was in the world when it was needed–by your betters and now you.

If you think that McDonald’s is all that is American culture as the Nonsense Syllable has stated then you all are fish that of course would be the last one’s to discover the American water that you swim in. You will understand only when the well goes dry.

You all better pray to whatever god, no god you chose that America can over come BHO and his retread socialist/communist ideals and the voter subversion now ongoing. You may need again or will need that boy from Georgia who can shot the eye out of a turkey at 100 yards. He’s doing it for you now in the fight against Islamic Terrorists. We all know who is carrying the load on that.

You have no capacity what so ever other than to genuflect to tyrants. Your industry gets pneumonia when America sneezes. You reproduce American ideas to survive and depend on American Markets. Some parts of you are now almost like Vietnam, a “3rd” world country. Depending on American Tourists.

America you can call names because we know who you are and pay no attention. Except for the now POTUS who thinks of himself as the leader of the world. Your world. That’s a laugh. He thinks he leads you in addition to America. Ho Ho. He has been called the “Magic Negro” by blacks in America.

We in America had better pray harder, that we can overcome this socialist’s siren’s song and BS. The last thing we want to be is like Europe or worse. Any part of it.

“Socialism will make the patient care less about their health, or rather add a sense of futility or frustration.”

So not only is the claim that Europeans receive inferior care when they become sick, to this you now add that we don’t even care much if we become sick in the first place because ‘socialism’ has sapped our will to look after ourselves.

How can both of these things be true and yet Europeans still live longer than Americans, we must be supermen or something I guess, nothing can kill us no matter how hard we try!!

Mark, thanks for clearing that up. 26% of belgians (and dutchmen) live in appartments which is a far cry from ‘everybody in Belgium’, considering that both Belgium and The Netherlands are one of the most densly populated regions in the world.
To make an equally stupid and not very polite comparaison, I invite every american to come and visit my house and neighbourhood to have a look at all the spatious and conformatable houses where we live in. Solid durable brick houses that aren’t blown away when a hurricane passes over because they’re made of wood and plaster board like ALL the houses in the US. I apologize for this remark, it’s just to make a point.

You may be somewhat suprised by the reaction of so many europeans who defend what they see as misinterpretations and distortations about a so-called ‘socialist’ Europe. This all came about, not because we see the US as the ‘boogeyman’, but because certain commentators and pundits in the US portray Europe and its own brand of capitalism as the ‘socialist boogeyman’. It is our right to disagree, and in the discussions that are result of this disagreement people tend to point out the weaknesses of the other side to prove their own point.
What I (and many europeans) find is surely a sign of weakness on your side is the contineous ‘name calling’ and outright insults that are being sprouted combined with, as we very clearly pointed out, baseless generalisations.
In the meantime we are in the process of cleaning up the remnants of your failed car industry, and only a few months ago, a company in tiny belgium took over an american icon in the beer industry. So I would think a little more modesty on the economic front would suit you well.

A lot of this discussion was instigated by the current American attempt to further socialize medical care. And from that perspective, and that of my friends that extensively traveled throughout Europe, and others that currently live in Europe (Norway, France, Croatia, Greece and Spain), I can absolutely say I much prefer the American system for rapid surgical and therapeutic response, with its wide variety of alternative options, when it comes to doctors, specialists and hospitals. Furthermore, we can very often personally determine the elective services that we want and when we get them. This is not true for all Americans but it is so for the majority. Having universal insurance is not the same as having universal good care. If you put an effort into what you want and need, in the American Medical System, most of us can get exactly what we choose. Today older Americans enjoy hip and knee replacements, heart valve replacements and other prosthetic surgical services on demand and almost experience a second life within old age.

When you dovetail capitalism with government entitlements don’t blame capitalism if the system cannot function. European countries, on an individual basis, do not contain the diversity that America supports. That is now changing and we will soon see how entitlements, provided by some, for many that fail to contribute will continue to survive. They will not. Many will learn to resent their neighbors.

Socialism, along with illegal immigration has seriously corrupted American culture and stifled American businesses. What you see in America, that Europeans find as negative, is the result of runaway entitlements and the suppression of free market capitalism. Capitalism and the abundance of choice and price works when it is not tethered to the taxpayer. Don’t blame Americans for criticizing Europe, because we are not. We are critiquing a system of government that ultimately doses not work because rewards go to those that often do the least while the most functional are punished. The problems that Americans are now experiencing, is not because of the failure of government, but because of its success. Never has the American government been so big and cost so much. The public, those who understand motivation is increased by the presence of rewards, have had enough of the Europeanization of America. It may appear to work for Europe where a population still thinks of themselves as subjects but in America we have been trained to think of ourselves as citizens and look to government, not for what it can collectively provide for us, but for protection… from government, itself, preventing us from providing for ourselves as individuals. We do not wish to be on the government plantation addicted to the narcotic of government handouts. Socialism does not ignore the individual, it sacrifices him and as such ignores our Constitution, upon which individual liberty and freedom reign supreme. In this country we recognize group rights, only to the extent that we start from the bottom up, where the smallest group is an individual of one (1).

“European Union has emerged that already surpasses the USA in terms of GDP”

Last checked US pop was 300M, GDP 14 T. EU Pop 500M, GDP 18 T. You need another 5.2 T in GDP to match GDP/capita, which is waht counts.

Gotta love all the Austrians weren’t smiling because of “cultural nuance” rationalizations. Sorry, if you can’t get a few pictures of people at a street festival who are laughing or joking or smiling, I don’t think there’s some cultural inhibitor involved there. Smiling Cubans? As soon as the gullible Castro-adoring Euros left, I’m sure the smiling ceased immediately. Oh but no, that kind of Potemkin Village-like charade would never happen in a Communist dictatorshiip. No sir.

“Solid durable brick houses that aren’t blown away when a hurricane passes over because they’re made of wood and plaster board like ALL the houses in the US”

Oh geez, and here they are complaining about generalizations. Has it occured to you that the reason many houses are built of wood along the SE coast is because the soil is loose and sandy and that brick and stone are not readily available materials. Or would that be too obvious. Were you aware that houses down there do not have basements? There’s a reason for that, you know.

Oh and all the food has high fructose corn syrup as well. ALL of it. Oh, and everyoen walks around with guns, too.

It’s kind of silly to react the way you do when someone points out that socialism stifles the individual when each and every one of you repeat the exact same nonsense, as if you’d all been giving the same script to read.

Back to basics : socialism vs capitalism & the European model.
Socialism stands for collective ownership of all means of production and distribution and equal access to resources for all indivuals and egalitarion compensation.
Capitalism stands for an economic system whereby the the means of production and distribution are 100% privately controlled and where labor, goods and capital are 100% traded in a free market.

In it’s purest form, both sides represent extremes, and with the exception of North Korea and possibly Cuba (of which i’m not even 100% sure) there is, since the collapse of the communist regimes in the former Soviet-Union/Eastern europe and the turnaround in China, no country on this planet that has currently implemented these extremes.

Each country uses something in between with some tending more towards capitalism and some more towards socialism. History has clearly demonstrated that none of the extremes function satisfactory. Pure socialism doesn’t work because of the detrimental effect it has on the motivation of individuals and society as a whole, and pure capitalism doesn’t work because it results in wild & uncontrolled market corrections and huge income inequalities that undermine social cohesion. Both extremes confront us with moral dillemmas.

The European Union, which is currently the biggest economic power in the world, is the best example of a succesfull implemention of a mixed system, with a strong bias towards capitalism but with necessary safety nets. Given the fact that the whole continent was in ruins a little more than half a century ago as a result of violent wars between the individual states, the establishment of a strong European union with a strong unified currency, good economic prospects, and europeans who cherisch their cultural heritage while enjoying standards of living that have never been as high, is nothing more than an economic and social miracle. A system that doesn’t work can impossibly produce these kind of results. Unfortunately, succes creates envy, and attracts criticism of those who yearn of things passed, expecially when they are confronted with their own domestic difficulties. It is symptomatic for societies that have internal issues to demonize others. On the other hand, I’ve witnessed how many europeans of many countries stood up to defend our achievements and economic and social model against insinuations and name-calling. This is not a coincidance and it surely not because we feel the need to rally behind a piece of european cloth, constitution and the bible in one hand and guns in the other. It’s because our history has taught us that we share important values, freedom and individual responsibilty being one of them but also compassion, respect for beliefs of others,trust in our elected officials, and the willingness to listen to others. Last but certainly not least, we share our deep cultural heritage and the knowledge that the cradle of freedom and democracy stands in Europe.

198. Landru
Exactly ! 100% correct ! If you read my post again, you will understand that I used this as an example of how futile and stupid it is to generalize and draw conclusions withour fully understanding the conetext. I hope you understand my point, and like I did in my original post, I apologize for having to give such an example.

I am not going to devote to much time responding to this amusing rant and would not do so anyway other than for reasons of courtesy, an acknowledgement of the comment you posted. The time I spent laughing suffises.
I will however note the following: Your post was but a ridiculous psychotic spouting of venom that lacked any argumentation, rationale or factual evidence beyond the questioning of wikipedia. Well then please bring forth some other source that confirms the little you have to say. While Europeans rationally move forward perhaps you might like to “pray harder” that you get some inspiration. Otherwise stop wasting our/my time with your misconceptions of the world that would/could never be taken seriously anywhere in the developed world beyond the American far right (even there only by the non intellectual stream of it), because it is not even a joke anymore.

That’s why it’s good that GDP per capita in Europe is slowly catching up with the USA.

Not that this indicator is the be all and end all of a society’s achievements, there are other goals equally worthy of pursuit. GDP per capita doesn’t even give a good indication of the material wealth of individuals in a society if looked at in isolation, for example if one person makes 99% of that GDP then pretty much everybody in that country will be poor.

I don’t really think that ‘not being able to consume enough stuff’ is a major problem in Western Europe at least. Modern day Western Europeans consume more ‘stuff’ than any other society in the history of mankind with the sole exception of modern day Americans. We consume the same amount of stuff that Americans did a decade ago, think back to 1999, were Americans generally impoverished and oppressed by the constraints on the amount of stuff they could buy?

Personally I’d rather consume a bit less as a society if it meant avoiding a permanently huge trade deficit and selling out the national finances to China and other big exporting nations. Every year the US consumes more than it produces, it has to hand over more and more interest bearing notes to its creditors and a bigger and bigger proportion of the national product has to be used servicing that debt.

Unfortunately, my country the UK isn’t much better in this regard but at least Europe as a whole is thinking a bit longer term, is a third plasma screen and yet more cheap plastic toys really worth selling out your country for?

Task 195 – “from that perspective, and that of my friends that extensively traveled throughout Europe, and others that currently live in Europe (Norway, France, Croatia, Greece and Spain), I can absolutely say I much prefer the American system for rapid surgical and therapeutic response, with its wide variety of alternative options, when it comes to doctors, specialists and hospitals.”

That’s your opinion and I respect that, but note that in any of those countries you mention you could always buy private health insurance to cover against the risk that the public provider might make you wait a while or might not have a brand new drug available yet.

But because the public health system does cover most things most of the time with no problem, that insurance will be much much cheaper than a private policy in the USA, after all it will only have to pay up in the small minority of cases where the public system is lacking rather than paying for every procedure and routine healthcheck like in the US.

Personally I prefer the European way of just living more healthily, not getting as sick in the first place and therefore being able to save hundreds of billions on healthcare for the same (or better) life expectancy which means the money can then be spent on more enjoyable things than colonoscopies.

“Smiling Cubans? As soon as the gullible Castro-adoring Euros left, I’m sure the smiling ceased immediately. Oh but no, that kind of Potemkin Village-like charade would never happen in a Communist dictatorshiip.”

Of course that kind of thing happens in Pyongyang where the only way of seeing the country is in tightly controlled tour groups who show how wonderfully well stocked the shops are and never allow you to interact with regular North Koreans but in Cuba you can travel around fairly easily on your own and see regular people, all the people I know who’ve done that confirm that they do indeed smile a lot even though they are relatively poor, the same way that poor people all over the Carribean do.

I stick to my assertion that levels of street grinning are not a useful indicator of the overall well-being and happiness/contentedness of a society.

Yeas, J, I did catch the intent of capitaliziang the ALL, no need to reread it. But I think it’s safe to assume you would have to have that silly generalization in your mind to begin with to even bring it up. I’ve heard it a million times

And most of the silly generalizations in these commenst come from Europhiles/Eurosocs (I think that term fits quite well) about the US, not the other way around.

“Unfortunately, succes creates envy, and attracts criticism of those who yearn of things passed, expecially when they are confronted with their own domestic difficulties. It is symptomatic for societies that have internal issues to demonize others”

The word that best describes what you said here is “projection”. Demonization of the US is common amongst Europeans and rampant in the press. No such phenomena exists in the US re Europe.

Assumptions are the bases for major misunderstandings and horrors in this world (don’t ask me to give examples in recent history because you might be offended). As I mentioned before, I used the generalization analogy on purpose to get a point accross. Anyhow I would like to thank you for explaining to me the reason why houses are build that way in that region of the US, although one of the reasons, being the (non)availbility of brick & stone still puzzles me.

As for your statement that demonization is a european phenonoma that doesn’t exist in the US, I would beg you to scroll back up to the top of the page for only one illustration that disproves your point. No need to read the whole article again, it is sufficient to look at the headlines. For starters, how does ‘egalitarian vampires’ sound to you to describe us europeans. Talk about demonization.
I would also advise you read-up on articles which appear on the Fox-news website or listen to the talk-show hosts, and listen to what they have to say about Europe.
As a regular visitor of the US where I frequently visit bookstores, I get each time confronted with ‘best-sellers’ that ‘analyze’ the so-called failure of our economic model while in the name of ‘American exceptionalism’ glorify your own policies, or express disdain because we don’t stick to religion and guns as you do. If you’re interested, I can provide you with a list of publications.
No sir, europa has no monopoly on demonization, on the contrary it is a certain part of the political spectrum in the US that consistently uses fear to convince and to persuade. Again to illustrate this, I would invite you to just follow the headlines on FoxNews for a couple of weeks.

Assumptions are the bases for major misunderstandings and horrors in this world (don’t ask me to give examples in recent history because you might be offended). As I mentioned before, I used the generalization analogy on purpose to get a point accross. Anyhow I would like to thank you for explaining to me the reason why houses are build that way in that region of the US, although one of the reasons, being the (non)availbility of brick & stone still puzzles me.

As for your statement that demonization is a european phenonoma that doesn’t exist in the US, I would beg you to scroll back up to the top of the page for only one illustration that disproves your point. No need to read the whole article again, it is sufficient to look at the headlines. For starters, how does ‘egalitarian vampires’ sound to you to describe us europeans. Talk about demonization.
I would also advise you read-up on articles which appear on the Fox-news website or listen to the talk-show hosts, and listen to what they have to say about Europe.
As a regular visitor of the US where I frequently visit bookstores, I get each time confronted with ‘best-sellers’ that ‘analyze’ the so-called failure of our economic model while in the name of ‘American exceptionalism’ glorify your own policies, or express disdain because we don’t stick to religion and guns as you do. If you’re interested, I can provide you with a list of publications.
No sir, europa has no monopoly on demonization, on the contrary it is a certain part of the political spectrum in the US that consistently uses fear to convince and to persuade. Again to illustrate this, I would invite you to just follow the headlines on FoxNews for a couple of weeks.

“most of the silly generalizations in these commenst come from Europhiles/Eurosocs (I think that term fits quite well) about the US, not the other way around….

No such phenomena exists in the US re Europe.”

lol, who are you kidding, do you not realise that we can read the comments sections of US websites and see your television??

You just have to look at this single article and the responses to it to see that you are completely wrong; trawl the net and you can find these predjudices, generalisations, propaganda spin, misconceptions and sometimes downright lies regarding Europe repeated a million times over.

I would never claim that European media and the public have no misconceptions about the US but you seem to claiming that the attitudes towards Europe we can all see among certain sectors of the American citizenry simply do not exist. You are either so far into your own echo chamber that you can’t recognise what is in front of your face or so unworldly that you actually believe all the propaganda to be true.

Ok first off, Thank you Dr Hanson again well observed. I was wondering, I would like to have plain old American seedless green table grapes for my 10are vineyard -our 5% alcohol toothpaint we make ourselves for our consumption, but being from Minnesota, I haven’t a clue about an easy to deal with varity, ok grape lovers of the world grince your teeth all you like I can’t deal with the seeds, and neither can two of my children!)
Johannes, you make some really good points, however as an American who has lived 1/3 of my life in France and two thirds of my life in the US, I am afraid to say Dr Hanson has it right. He pointed out that Northern Europe isn’t the same as Southern Europe( which is where JE SUIS>>>Marie Claude le Nord de la France n’est pas le Sud non plus, et les tractors n’était pas trop bon pour la France but that is another story). You (Johannes) however, have only lived in Europe-deducted from you haven’t used your personal experience in any of your arguements. As for any comments back I am not going to argue with you for two reasons, one is that you are too European to understand what makes Americans-and that is not an insult. I was born and raised ( and for which I thank God) in a place that has one of the best standards of living on the planet for average people (someone mentioned comparing living in Minnesota, where I am from, to Detroit, and yes will concede that I am living in the French equivilent of Arkansas or Tennesee or Kentucky-which by the way are very beautiful places but I don’t know if I would like living there better than here in france) and now live in a sardine can on France’s wonderful part time employment(ok i get health benefits, thank government-I can’t thank God here they threw Him out (I do thank Him really)-kept the churchs and the holidays tho :) because if my farmer husband had to cover us, we’d be broke. ooo did I get chatty? Sorry, my bad habit to wander around the place. All of that brings me to point number two, I am comparing apples and oranges, but that was mentioned in the article also, the point is that as an American, our basic values are liberty justice and the pursuit of hapiness- which needs to be a conscience when will I be happy? statement or end up like someone’s previously stated liberals! I have learned that last one ever so deeply in the land of liberté, fraternité, et équalité (which, to quote an English friend of mine, just brings everyone to the lowest common denominator). Talk about cultural misunderstandings!!! But, as the only American here, I am used to that very important cultural gap. So I will not argue what experience has taught me, because I can NOT teach you what I learned the hard way: by going through it.
N°204 As for buying the private insurance, most private insurances are only topping up what the government doesn’t cover, like a doctor visit in France is government regulated to be 20 euros, ok, the government part pays 65-70% and my 2500 euros a year top up pays the rest. I have four children three and four are “free” (no free lunch), I pay for the option that lowers dental and orthodontists costs (we end up paying about 10% of those costs) and mostly covers eye care. My husband insured separately pays an additional 550 per year he is never sick- one cold in 20 years, cut finger, stitches over an eye, and stitches on his hand. However, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, both full time salaried workers, she gets full coverage, but we aren’t able to be offered that type of coverage, why I don’t really understand, but I think it’s because of the business? Anyway, as I said great article and alot of people lost north and went all kinds of directions with what was written. Too bad.

Landru:
sorry but what have you thought? that only because someone who sends his kids as “missionarys” (which is strange indeed) to a western european country (in this case Austria) tells you that no one was smiling an a foto. you take this as truth? yes street festivals are famous in europe for people crying because life just sucks here. i mean come on! get real.
you believe this?

Landru:
i admit not a street festival but a party (i have been this year) so just sit back and watch. (you can click your self trough most of europe) enjoy all this crying europeans especially the girls. damn makes me wanna cry too that the people are so depressed here in Europe ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWe84trIbbM

By the way, is that your real name, i like it very much, it’s very french. I confess, I never lived outside Europe (or Belgium for that matter). I did work and live 1 year (short time) in Paris though, where I enjoyed very much the French ‘savoir vivre’ and food off-course. Having said that, i’ve travelled extensively to east (mainly Japan) and west (mainly US) and what I found to be most fascinating, was to try the understand other cultures and scoieties. During these travels (which were mainly for business) I enjoyed very much converstations I had during dinner or during WE sometimes, with locals about how they see the world and how their own society is organised.
It comes as no suprise that when you are born and raised in a certain culture, you become part of that culture (yes, guilty as charged I’m a proud european) which makes it difficult sometimes to leave your comfort zone to appreciate and understand the values of other cultures or how they implemented them in their society. And having said that, the values so cherised by the US, are not that different of the values of us Europeans, as you very well know (as you pointed out liberté, fraternité, égalité). And before anybody would translate égalité as a socialist idea, I would like to point out it refers to equal rights, not equal pay. By the way, the statue of liberty was a gift from the french government to the US.
We differ in how we implemented these values, and there is nothing wrong with that. We should respect the US and their brand of freedom and capitalism, just as the US has to respect ours. Discussions become heated when, for purely internal political purposes in most cases, people start to compare without insight, using anecdotal ‘evidence’, examples out of context, generalisations, and so one, to illustrate how good their own model works and how bad it is on the other side, especially when this done with an undertone of ‘we are better than you’ (i’m referring here to this outdated idea of ‘american exceptionalism’ that is so prevelant is certain political circles in the US). When we react to try to clarify things, it is not because we do not respect the american way of doing things, it is because we cherisch ours. To be honest, I have yet to witness in the European or belgian political and social debate, that models of other contries are used as arguments to convince people of your own political parties views, supported by commentators that spend their holidays in certain areas and come back as self-proffessed experts who feel the need to make qualitative statements that apply to a whole society. It happens here in this forum, and I see it in several other columns as well, and frankly speaking, this breaks my heart.
Michou, one favour : can you quote where in the article the author acknowledges that Northern France differs from the South of France or that he compares apples with oranges, I’ve read the article again but I missed it propably.
Anyhow, I would enjoy very much to chat we you sometime about our different implementations.

Ooops, forgot to tell that we make around 19000 taxable income, which isn’t taxable, but we pay to csg tax because everyone needs to help, but that isn’t an income tax-go figure, the point is the great medical in France is ok medical in Minnesota.

“You miss the point as usual. Yes, apartment living is the norm in a more urbanized society. But the point the professor is making is that most Europeans don’t own their place of residence unless it has been passed down via inheritance. Got that? Two-thirds of Americans accumulate enough wealth to own a place even if it’s only a condo. Europeans simply can’t save enough to enter the ownership class. This is what happens when you combine high tax rates with a high cost of living.”

Yet another misconception, I missed this one on first reading the comments but there are so many here that it’s difficult to know where to start ;)

Some countries (especially the German speaking nations) have a cultural preference for renting but those few nations apart, home ownership rates in Europe are pretty high. Home ownership is actually lowest in Switzerland I think which has the lowest taxes in Western Europe, so I don’t think your explanation stands up.

I’m sure many people in Europe have used inheritance to help them buy places to live, but that’s also the case in the US, or do retired Americans prefer to spend all of their money on jet-skis these days rather then passing it on to their kids? As for ‘saving enough to enter the ownership class’, how many Americans (or Europeans) actually do that? As far I can see the vast majority borrow to fund their purchase of a home.

Anyway, here are the figures for the % of people in Europe owning the home they live in, including those buying on a mortgage. I’ve inserted the US, Canadian, Japanese and Australian figures too for comparison:

For the purpose of making this discussion a litle more lighthearted, i’ve added here a link to a slideshow of a popular yearly streetfestival in the beauticfulhistoric city of Gent,Belgium,Europe :http://www.gentsefeesten.be/eCache/DEF/59.html

I invite those who participate in these discussions to have a look at it (takes a while, many pictures).
You will notice many smiling, wealthy, happy people, young and old making fun and enjoying life, while others work hard to make it happen. This is only one of the many reasons why i’m proud to be european. This is my last post here. Best regards to all-Johannes.

I know how you feel as a foreigner living in our country, I had the same reflexion when I was living in UK, (2 years), you can’t prevent yourself from idealising your home(mother) country when you’re abroad

and the Agricultors (cattle-breeding) aren’t the wealthiest’s, Crops farming is more paying ! My father had a farm where he made polycultures, and cattle breeding too.

But I understood you’re living around Toulouse, and “midi-Pyrrenees aren’t so priced as Midi-Côte d’Azur, or Normandy, Beauce and Brie, even Brittany can enjoy a better employment rate, as Vendée, depends on the political leaders there, that are more oriented on their population than in parisain political star system

Hey Mark J and Johannes. There are no equivalents to this in the US re Europe (and this is only one example, there are many others that are similar), not on Fox News and certainly not on any other major mass circulation publications. Pointing out comments on blogs when the subject in question is a comparison between the two has no relation to mass-media that is put out deliberateley to push negative stereotypes and demonizations. You can pretend there is all you like, but there simply isn’t anything like this that gets routinely peddled in any major media of any kind in the US. A single banner in a VDH article using the “egalitarian vampires” phrase doesn’t even come close to even reaching the apples vs oranges level. More like an apple orchard vs an orange pip. There’s no comparison and anyone who is honest and objective would acknowledge that.

“you take this as truth? yes street festivals are famous in europe for people crying because life just sucks here. i mean come on! get real. you believe this?”

Foreigner, what I believe about the story about the photos is irrelevant, and I don’t believe I offered any opinion on them myself. And what does the fact that the people who are said to have took them were missionaries (Mormons most likely) have to do with it?

The only point I was making is that the excuses and rationalizations people were using, that there is some sort of cultural inhibitor against smiling at street festivals in Austria, is obvious nonsense.

This is the most thoughtful, perceptive and illuminating discourse on the “hope and change” agenda I have seen anywhere. Maybe this close look at European life can help wake Americans up before it is too late!

Mark J. You really do miss the point, especially about the inherited from parents part. Also, the numbers you have are not the number of people who own their own home, but the % of households, which becomes important in light of the number of 18-34 living with their parents. (And this “cultural preferences” explanation seems to be some sort of “get out of jail free” card to throw out to rationalize just about anything.

Why not peruse these two links and what VDH is saying becomes much more apparent.

The first the % of individuals in households owning a the dwelling with a mortgage, the second delves in to the % of 18-34 year olds living with their parents. EU-15 average around 30%, as high as 60% in southern Europe.

The picture is not one of a particularly high level of social mobility overall.

As for the Eastern European high ownership numbers, considering the almost non-existent mortgages, we can assume these were Communist govt allocated units which they are now deemed to be “owned” by the residents.

It’s clearly a propaganda display, these people are paid stooges of the Belgian government, anybody who reads the truths printed in the right wing US media ‘knows’ that Belgians dress in rags, never smile and live in fear of muslims.

Sorry, but i see demonization of Europe and Europeans all the time by the US right wing, whether it’s the ‘axis of weasels’ and ‘freedom fries’ episodes when European countries quite legitimately disagree with US foreign policy, the constant propaganda spin and distortions peddled in the current healthcare debate or the constant drip drip drip of cherry picked statistics and anecdotes regarding European society and the economy designed to give the impression that things are far more negative than the reality.

Last weeks piece on UK healthcare in Investors Business Daily was exposed as containing out and out lies, much disinformation goes unchallenged though as there is simply too much of it.

Type ‘Europe’ into the search box at the top of this page and you will find maybe 50 negative stories to every 1 positive or even balanced.

The accusations and assertions made in those negative stories are often debatable at best but they are usually presented as facts which further reinforce the preconceptions and easy stereotypes held by the readership. It is clear from the tone of the articles and the way that stats etc are cherry picked and used without context that the intention is to portray Europe in as negative a light as possible (demonisation). This picture is repeated across the right wing US media in all formats.

Check out websites like f**kfrance.com entirely devoted to the demonisation of a European country by the general American public, no such vitriolic equivalent exists in France.

On a final note, in the US I have turned on the TV to be greeted by a guy proclaiming with a straight face that the EU is the twelve horned beast of the book of revelation and that Europe will be the home of the anti-christ (possibly Javier Solana, lol). I’ve yet to come across such crazed extremes of propaganda nonsense in Europe regarding the USA.

“The only point I was making is that the excuses and rationalizations people were using, that there is some sort of cultural inhibitor against smiling at street festivals in Austria, is obvious nonsense.”

I don’t think that saying there might be societal differences in body langauge, displays of emotion, conceptions of personal space and other similar factors is ‘obvious nonsense’. In fact there is a wealth of literature out there showing that these things do indeed vary greatly between societies.

In any case, it’s clear that the original poster of this comment was exaggerating/cherry picking again, I’ve been to street festivals in Austria and walked around their streets and while the people are not as expressive as carnival goers in Rio, you can see them smiling if you look closely. :)

Regarding the East European figures, yes they are somewhat distorted in countries like Romania by post-communist housing privatisations which transferred public housing to occupiers at preferential rates.

But this has never been a factor in all of those other countries with home ownership rates which are 70%+, your link says that in the 1970s, home ownership rates in Spain for example were no higher than the OECD average which at the time I believe was in the 50-60% range. Now it is 83% so clearly in those intervening years, many have become owner-occupiers who were previously not.

I can’t accept your total dismissal of ‘cultural factors’, they clearly are relevant in some cases. Take Germany for example, they have some of the highest wages in Europe and some of the cheapest housing in Western Europe (much cheaper than here in the UK where we have much higher ownership levels). You can pick up a decent small apartment in a reasonable area of Berlin for 50,000 Euros, so affordability is clearly not the main factor, especially when you consider that in Germany consumers are generally far less indebted than in the anglosphere.

It’s true that many young people in southern Europe live with their parents, Northern Europe though has similar levels to the US and also often higher levels of owner occupation too.

Again with your link to % of homes being bought on mortgage, the figures for northern Europe are very similar to the US figures which as far as I can make out show that approximately 40% are buying on a mortgage, 27% own outright with the rest renting. The US numbers of mortgage holders will of course be boosted by the number of people withdrawing equity over the past years which will delay the repayment of their home loans.

Of course there are barriers to social mobility in Europe but so too are there in the US. People in southern Europe tend to move around less than in northern europe and the US, thus they are more likely to keep inherited houses and live in them while I suspect that in northern europe and the US, people sell inherited houses and use the cash to buy a place of their own, probably with a mortgage too. I certainly don’t personally know anybody here in the UK who is living in a house that they inherited from their parents.

A recent study found that social mobility among the countries studied was actually greatest in Scandinavia, Germany and benelux with Italy, France, the UK and the US coming out quite badly as parental incomes in those countries were a generally good predictor of the income levels of their children.

Interesting VDH report on his EU travels with even more interesting commentary that I think brilliantly illuminates VDH’s contention that Socialism begats a society of small minded, jealous and untrusting citizens aka cultural balkinization. Another example of this uncivility and selfserving result of the Collective Bureaucracy and its stranglehold on the individual is reflected in the British rush to defend their bloated failure of National Healthcare as it is cited as the antithesis to what Americans desire in their HC here.

WestWright : if it was the purpose of your elegant contribution to this blog to add to the name-calling, you have succeeded wonderfully. It merely serves to illustrate and confirm the points that I made earlier and I thank you for that.

“Check out websites like f**kfrance.com entirely devoted to the demonisation of a European country by the general American public, no such vitriolic equivalent exists in France.”

Oh well, there’s not much point in this. I point an example of a major German “news” magazine (aka Time or something in the US) which is largely similiar to almost all the rest wth similar circulation and mass exposure in Europe, and you cite some obscure website and a crazy preacher on some cable channel. I doubt 99+% of Americans have ever seen or heard of either, so not sure how this compares to magazine and newspapers that practically every person in Europe see every day. (not to mention TV, which I’m sure you’ll claim is just expressing dissent for US foreign policy) As I said, apple orchards vs an orange pip, in your examples the pip is buried in a dumpster somewhere.

“A recent study found that social mobility among the countries studied was actually greatest in Scandinavia, Germany and benelux with Italy, France, the UK and the US coming out quite badly as parental incomes in those countries were a generally good predictor of the income levels of their children.”

An impossible study to actually produce, since there is no way to determine this empirically. The only possible method is to poll people and ask how they think they are doing financially compared to their parents. A purely subjective opinion that cannot be quantified in any real way. (Census data?Nope. Filled out the census and no information there about how much money my father made-I wouldn’t even know) Basically rubbish, probably concocted by Euro left-wingers trying to come up with yet another bogus statistic to glorify themselves.

They ought to be focusing on the increasing emigration of skilled professionals from Europe vs wallowing in slef-serving “studies”. Maybe they’re including all those people fleeing from Holland in their social mobility numbers?

Time to move on. But, one final point. If you want to talk about the US as a whole, you have to stop the cherry picking of small population countries and take the whole EU. Otherwise we can easily do the same by comparing, say Vermont or many other places, to Sweden or Norway by itself.

As you say, there’s little point debating this further, you clearly have your view and you’re going to stick to it whatever. Equally I am content that my position is perfectly justifiable.

But as a parting note, here is the study I was talking about, hardly self-serving as it’s from a UK organisation dedicated to studying social mobility issues which regularly criticises the record of the UK on the subject.

If you still think that social mobility is objectively unmeasurable, it does beg the question of how you are so sure that it is worse all over Europe.

As for cherry picking individual countries, I actually went to the trouble of putting in EU averages for those figures I listed, home ownership and types of dwelling. I also pointed out the variance in home ownership between US states. I really don’t think I can be accused of cherry picking more than either the original article or the many other comments which pick out say tax evasion in Greece and extrapolate that to the whole of Europe.

I’ve lost count of the number of times i’ve read in the US press how a small riot in provincial France or slow economic growth in southern Italy shows the inevitable and imminent doom of an entire continent.

If you want distortions and propaganda about Europe from mainstream sources such as the NY Post, Washington Post, IBD, WSJ, Fox, the blogosphere, republican officials and representatives etc in addition to the plethora of small-time crackpots then I will be happy to point you in the right direction but i’m sure you can find them yourself if you actually look with a critical mind.

of course it’s joking for you, but for us it’s racism, incitation to/for hate, certainly not relevant from freedom of speech like you often recomand yourself, I bet none community in US would have let your people insult them like you did for us ! and sometimes still do, difficult to remove what has been hammered in your docile brains since a decade.

But it’s an old and original habit in your country, like !Washington, who already passed us under the bus, it’s not a moral dilemn for you to remake it anytime it’s convenient for your elite, and bonjour la machine de propagande, I have seen quite a few times that Goebel had good imitators

Marie Claude, oui c’est moi. Mon mari, son exploitation est 50-50 polyculture-cattle, and he inherited a French inheritence cauchemare(nightmare)…yep near Toulouse sort of. Which is very similar in size and feeling to the Twin Cities where I am from.
Johannes, sorry it’s usually late when I get time on the computer so I get blurry…you are correct, it must have been in another article that I understand that the author differentiated between Northern and Southern Europe. I am the one who found a big difference between N et S France. I have had many friends and travels, plus a brief “stage” in Brittany, Normandy, and the Maine et Loire. My favorite place in France is Brittany. The apples and oranges is comparing fruits. Most people in France really want me to tell them how much better it is here than back in the miserable US where there is no healthcare( I honestly hear this all the time especially at the pharmacy)…ooo l’avocat du diable….I usually answer with when you like apples and oranges, but when you only get one of the two, the other looks better, there are things that I really miss either way, in France or back home. However, what I really miss, is the economic liberty to create money, it’s so jealous here. That, I have not experienced here in France. I must point out, that I do not expect France to change for me, I chose to come here to be with my husband-which is another funny thing, most Europeans(outside of the English and the Neerlandais living here)can not fathom that I would choose to leave the US just because I love my husband. Everyone I know in the US pretty much admires me for that same choice, even though they, equally to the French, may think I am nuts to have left my home. People are different. I stand however behind the premise of this article, that the socialism creates jealousy in the lower classes especially, and unfortunately for France égalité for many means economic equality as well equal treatment (justice would have been a better word choice, but hmm). I am aware of the origins of the Statue of Liberty, have been to see it, and my French/Belgian/Luxembourgian family origins (see we Americans are European descendants) taught me that very early on.

About four weeks ago I got back from four weeks in Europe. A week in Britain, two in Italy with German relations and then a week with friends in Paris. My reaction on reading this is to say has this guy completely lost it because it sure sounds like it. Public transport is unpleasant?…..this guy needs to ride the trains to NYC sometime. Long family meals?……this is bad. There are no stores in the states selling overpriced Gucci bag and eyeframes?…..really. You need to head home to Hawaii which is where I believe you live Vic and lie down in darkened room for a while or consult a shrink. I just also surfed a couple of the comments who believe this is fundamentally accurate. Amazing.

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